


put that weight on me

by hockeydyke



Series: Samwell Women's Hockey [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to... Something, Eventual Romance, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Samwell Women's Hockey, Slow Burn, Team as Family, Unnecessary plot twists, WLW Characters, Women's hockey, injuries, the dynamics of navigating your own internalized sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2018-12-11 23:21:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 60,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11724708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hockeydyke/pseuds/hockeydyke
Summary: Samwell Women’s Hockey rookie Jordan Kelly is having a hard time adjusting to women’s hockey after playing for her high school boys’ team. She’s too big, too aggressive, too much of a goon-- and worst of all? She’s completely at odds with her captain.Basically, it looks like SWH captain Celeste Lefebvre is going to have her hands full with this rookie.





	1. welcome to the jungle

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this is was a long time coming! This story was born out of two goals: one, to add more wlw characters to omgcp fanon, and two, to find ways to let more omgcp fans know about how awesome women's hockey is. 
> 
> This story will be fifteen chapters long, with a new chapter posted every weekend (or sooner if I'm feeling like being nice). 
> 
> Shoutouts for this chapter go to Moira, for enduring constant texts where I ramble about this fic in way too much detail, to Amelia, Kat, KT, and Ollie, for letting me take over or omgcp group chat with planning for this and also helping create team members, to Ethan for kindly answering my questions about playing hockey, to Brooke for helping me come up with the title, to tumblr user jlzimmermann for creating an omgcp timeline that I reference constantly while writing, and last but not least, to Ngozi for creating the comic! 
> 
> And lastly, a final disclaimer: I have never played hockey. I grew up in a household where hockey was on the TV all winter and all of my family were diehard Sabres fans, so all of my knowledge comes from being a fan, doing a lot of research, and basing the SWH team off my own experiences playing on softball and rugby teams. If you notice any glaring mistakes when it comes to my hockey knowledge, please let me know!

Jordan steps into the boardroom and nearly steps right back out again because she is _definitely_ in the wrong place.

 

She backs up to the doorway again and hunches over her phone to double-check the email she’d received a few weeks previously, from one _clefebvre2015@samwell.edu:_

 

_Hello,_

_Annual preseason informational meeting and banquet will be August 22nd at Carter Boardroom at 7pm. Light refreshments will be served._

_Excited for the season to start,_

_Celeste_

 

Then, a follow up email sent the next day from _amazoud2015@samwell.edu:_

 

_Hey lovelies!_

_Your rookie mama Anisa here! I know some of you freshmen are still getting a hang of getting around campus, so I figured I’d give you some more details. Carter Boardroom is located on the first floor of the Student Center (big brick building on Lake Quad), down the hallway to the right of the lobby... Dress is business casual. I know Celeste said there’d be refreshments but those are usually kind of lame so like no shame in eating dinner beforehand._

_If you have any questions about anything, team-related or not, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email!_

_Excited to meet you all,_

_Anisa_

 

She’s definitely in the right building, if the big “Student Center” sign out front is any indication, and she did follow the sound of voices to the hallway to the right of the lobby and checked to make sure that the room sign said “115 Carter Boardroom” before entering. Yet here she is, staring at a room full of girls and feeling like something went wrong.

 

For one, they’re all dressed to the nines. All except for one or two are in dresses, and Jordan is pretty sure she sees sequins on one of them. She swears the email said that the dress code is business casual. Isn’t that just a fancy way of saying casual?

 

Shit. Maybe she should have put more thought into this. Her torn jeans, ratty Bass Pro Shop t-shirt and Timberlands combo will definitely not fly here. She looks back down at her phone, opens up google, and is halfway through googling “what counts as business casual” when someone steps right in front of her and clears their throat.

 

Jordan looks up and is faced with a girl, shorter than her (though that’s true of most women), and dressed in the aforementioned sequined dress. Her hair dark and very curly, but short, falling mid-ear. The girl waits a moment and Jordan feels oddly inclined to straighten up her posture and put her phone away. She does so, sheepishly.

 

Thankfully, the girl is nowhere near unfriendly when she finally speaks. “Hi! You must be Jordan. You’re the last rookie here-- did you just come from something else?” she says, bubbly. Before Jordan can even react she has a hand at her elbow and is guiding her toward the chairs set up before a podium at the front of the room.

 

Jordan takes another look down at herself, notices a stain on her shirt, and decides to take the opportunity to redeem herself. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. Didn’t have time to change.”

 

“No big deal! I don’t even know why this is a formal event-- it’s just a silly meeting, you know? But tradition is tradition, I guess, and I suppose everyone wants to make a good first impression before we spend all season seeing each other sweaty and gross in the locker room, you know?”

 

Jordan doesn’t really know-- the closest she’s come to changing with other girls in her entire hockey career was facing away from another girl player as they both changed in a cramped storage closet during division semifinals last season, but she’s pretty sure she gets what the girl means, so she nods anyway.

 

“I’m having all my rookies sit together up front, so you can pick a seat right here after you get your food,” says the girl, waving at the front row of folding chairs.

 

Ah. ‘My rookies.’ Jordan had a feeling this was the rookie mama, and that pretty much confirms it. “Oh, you’re Anisa?” she asks.

 

“Oh my gosh, yeah! I totally forgot to introduce myself. Sorry about that-- I’m kind of frazzled today. We don’t really have a manager right now, so I’m kind of playing two roles while we try to find one. But yeah! I’m Anisa, rising junior. I’m planning all sorts of fun activities for rookie bonding. It’s a small class this year, so I’m hoping you guys get close!”

 

Jordan nods throughout this ramble, and isn’t quite sure how to respond when it’s finally done. The lights in this boardroom are awfully bright and she’s sweating, all too aware of how underdressed she is. Eventually, after a few seconds too long of silence, she manages, “Cool, thanks,” and sits at a chair in the center of the row.

 

Anisa gives her another bright smile before hurrying back over to the refreshments table, which Jordan turns in her seat to see better. She is hungry, since she got a little lost on campus and ran out of time to grab the recommended pre-banquet meal, but as soon as she rises from her seat to walk over to the table, the loud whine of microphone feedback startles her and she drops back down to sit again.

 

A young woman has taken her place at the podium, wearing a plain black dress, sleeveless, falling just above mid-knee, right at the place where the rips start on Jordan’s jeans. The woman’s dirty blonde hair is pulled into a low ponytail bunched at the nape of her neck. She’s facing Jordan’s direction with a stern glare and Jordan considers straight up asking her what she did to deserve that kind of stare before thinking better of it and turning to see that she’s really glaring at two girls who have just entered the room. She must be a coach, Jordan thinks. She exudes discipline like it’s her job but she looks like a goddamn Barbie, minus most of the chest and the height.

 

“I know some of us have only just gotten here, but we’re already ten minutes behind schedule, so I’d appreciate it if we all moved to our seats now,” the woman says, and everyone in the room immediately proceeds to the seats. A few of them, presumably rookies, sit in the front row around Jordan.

 

The woman’s voice is harsh but not quite as mature as Jordan has expected. It’s also heavily-accented. Quebecois, Jordan is absolutely certain, and she is pretty adept at recognizing accents from years of staying up past her bedtime watching _NHL On the Fly_.

 

Jordan watches as the two girls who just entered the room make a big, exaggerated show of grabbing cups of lemonade and brownies from the refreshments table before making their way to sit in the middle of the third row, despite there being plenty of open end seats in the last row. Anisa, sitting in the second row, sighs at their antics, and the girl next to her, darker skin than Anisa, hair in a tight bun, dressed in a pink blouse tucked into black slacks, openly rolls her eyes.

 

When the two girls have finally, _finally_ , sat down, the woman up front asks, “Are you going to be quiet now?”

 

“Yup!” says the shorter of the two, a kind of pasty white girl, gray dress, blonde bob.

 

At the same time, her partner-in-crime, wearing a wrinkly dress and a flannel tied around her waist, says “Aye, captain!”

 

Oh. Podium woman is the captain. _Maybe,_ thinks Jordan for the first time, _I should have checked out their roster before coming here._

 

Whatever. Too late now. Captain is speaking again already, still terse.

 

“Anyway. Thank you to everyone to making it here today. I’m Celeste Lefebvre and I’ll be your captain this season.  I’m looking forward to getting to know all of our newcomers. I know you’re all committed to this team and capable of the hard work necessary to succeed. Playoffs last season were definitely a let-down, but this team has what it takes to turn around and change that this year. I’m going to let Coach Lewis talk now, so please welcome him to the podium”

 

There’s some polite clapping. Jordan takes advantage of the noise to whisper to the girl sitting to her left, “Not very passionate, huh? That’s probably the most generic pump-up speech I’ve ever heard.”

 

The girl gives Jordan an icy look. “Are you kidding me?”

 

Jordan flushes. Well. No easy rapport with this teammate, it seems. “What?”

 

Instead of answering, the girl just shakes her head. “Shh. Coach is talking.”

 

The head coach goes through a standard run-down of team procedures and scheduling. Nothing’s a surprise, really, and all of the actual hockey talk is as familiar as ever, so it isn’t long before she’s lost concentration and watching Celeste absentmindedly. Even sitting down in a chair beside the podium her posture is still perfect, back straight and head held high. Her legs are politely crossed over the knee and again at her dainty ankles. Jordan hates her already.

 

By the time the assistant coach and Anisa have spoken and the meeting is dismissed, Jordan is sitting there in a haze, angry and ashamed, mostly at herself. She knows that this is just a dumb meeting, that she’ll have a chance to prove herself on the ice, but god. What’s the point of switching to women’s hockey for college if she’s just going to feel as awkward and out of place as she did on every boy’s team she’s ever been on? At least she knows how to play along with the guys and convince them that she’s just one of them.

 

Samwell Women’s Hockey? Now, that’s entirely uncharted territory, and she is _not_ looking forward to fighting her way through it.

 

\\_ . _/

 

Their first practice, thank god, goes a little bit better. Jordan had rushed out of the banquet before anyone else had a chance to introduce themselves, so Anisa takes it upon herself to engage her with friendly chatter in the locker room and then continues to point out teammates as they take to the ice for warmups.

 

“Johanna’s in the net most of the time,” Anisa says, nodding at the blonde girl who had shown up late to the banquet as she lowered her helmet. “Courtney over there--" the girl who sat next to Anisa at the banquet, Jordan notices--  "plays D. Same with those two-- that’s Zoe and Chloe,” Anisa says, pointing at two girls, both with blonde ponytails sticking out behind their helmets as they make wide, lazy passes along one blueline.

 

Jordan leans on her stick, squinting at them. “Which one’s which?”

 

Anisa shrugs. “Hell if I know. Don’t worry about it. I think they respond to each other’s names at this point.

 

The two girls come to a stop in front of the goal and duck their heads close to speak for a moment. Jordan can’t see any discernable difference in their faces, but then again, she’s across the rink and trying to look at them through their masks. “Are they... twins?”

 

Another girl comes to a hard stop next to them, icing Jordan, then loudly says, “Nah-- I thought they were dating?”

 

Jordan looks her up and down-- she’s the other one who’d shown up late to the banquet. She’s holding her helmet in one hand while she attempts to wrestle her hair, long and dark, into a ponytail with the other.

 

“I don’t think they’re either of those things,” Anisa says. She then sighs and sets her stick on the boards as she leans over to put up the girl’s hair for her.

 

Jordan is glad, as usual, that she’s kept her hair at pixie length since freshman year of high school. There are very few things she hates more than getting long hair stuck in a helmet, and anyway, it’s easier to avoid being treated different than any of the boys when she doesn’t have a ponytail to mark her as different.

 

The girl smiles, coolly, and Jordan gets the feeling that she expected Anisa would do this. “I’m Sierra, by the way. I play D.”

 

“Jordan Kelly. Right wing,” Jordan says, offering her hand for a shake. Sierra looks at it for a second, then takes it and gives a firm shake that would be very professional if it weren’t so vigorous.

 

“How tall are you?” Sierra asks, and Jordan consciously drops her shoulders to slouch a bit, which is something she’s never felt like she’s had to do on the ice before.

 

“5’11,” she says, picking at the tape on her stick.

 

“Damn. It’ll be nice to have you up against the boards. Welcome to the team.”

 

Before Jordan can respond, a small red jersey-clad shape whizzes past them on its way to the crease. All three of them turn to watch Celeste take a shot on the goalie, who makes a long lunge but doesn’t even get a piece of the puck as it flies in, top shelf.

 

“Man. Fucking wicked clapper.” Sierra applauds loudly, and cackles when Celeste shakes off her glove to give her the finger as she skates by again.

 

“She’s ridiculously fast,” Jordan says, somewhat dumbfounded by the shot. It was glorious.

 

“I mean, yeah,” says Sierra, placing her helmet on and patting Anisa’s shoulder in thanks. “She’s got that mad hockey prodigy thing going on.”

 

Before Jordan has a chance to ask what Sierra means, Celeste has skated back over to them and gently hooked Sierra around the waist with her stick.

 

“Oh, you’re already here? So you can show up on time for things?” Celeste says, giving enough of a tug that Sierra has to struggle to balance.

 

“Aw, cut the crap, Cap. You knew I wouldn’t miss the only day a year when you wear anything other than leggings. Cute dress by the way,” Sierra spins out of the way of Celeste’s stick and ducks behind Jordan before Celeste has a chance to hook her again. “How much did it cost? More or less than tuition?”

 

Celeste doesn’t quite laugh, but she smiles and shakes her head. “You’re awful. I’m making you do bag skates.”

 

“You wouldn’t. Maybe the rookies could use that, though,” Sierra adds, patting Jordan’s shoulder from behind.

 

Celeste meets Jordan’s eyes for the first time since skating over. “Hey. Jordan Kelly, right?”

 

“That’s me.”

 

“Saw a video of your varsity team at your division finals last year. Your speed and strategy need a lot of work, but we have time for that. Glad to have you on the team,” she said before turning and skating away as Jordan glared at her back.

 

 _Needs work._ Great. _Are you kidding me_ , Jordan thinks? Is Celeste just going to be the kind of captain who pretends to soften criticism with empty compliments? And to think she came to Samwell with the intention of improving her game. At this rate she’s pretty sure she’s going to spend the entire season sitting her ass on the bench. She just can’t seem to figure out what’s going on and how to be one of the team.

 

Whatever. Pissy captain or not, Jordan’s here for a reason, so she abandons the boards to get a few shots in before warmups are over and Coach Lewis takes to the ice to start giving them direction. Jordan manages to pay attention while the coach goes over some team expectations, but by the time he starts talking about hockey IQ or some dumb shit like that she’s zoned out and scraping at the ice with the toe of her blade. She can’t wait to actually, you know, skate.

 

An hour later she finally gets her chance to show off when Celeste and Coach Lewis divide the team up for a quick scrimmage. She ends up on a line with two girls whose names she can’t remember, but what really matters to her is that she’s up against Celeste’s line.

 

This is great. This is fantastic, really. Jordan will show her _strategy._

 

Coach blows his whistle and they start, a regular five-on-five. Celeste wins the faceoff and before Jordan even has time to blink she’s off on a breakaway, speeding down the ice faster than anyone can keep up for a second or two. She’s not just quick-- she’s _fucking fast._

 

They play some good hockey and Jordan feels great-- when she gets possession she keeps her eyes up and manages to sense perfectly where Courtney and Sierra, her rival defense pair, are heading. She weaves around them; sauces it to her center, who puts it in the net, five hole.

 

Jordan congratulations the girl with a hearty clap on the back that almost knocks her off her feet. The girl grins wide at Jordan anyway, flushed with excitement and exertion.

 

Their shift is over after that and Jordan gets a moment to catch her breath and drink some water. After drenching herself (on accident, yes), she happens to glance over at the other bench and catch Celeste pointing at her as she speaks with Coach Lewis, heads ducked.

 

Coach’s eyes follow Celeste’s point and he briefly makes eye contact with Jordan before looking down again. He and Celeste exchange a few more words before he breaks into giggles while Celeste smirks.

 

Jordan feels her blood run hot. She glares in their direction but they don’t look at her again, so she funnels all her anger inward. It’s just fuel, after all. She takes a deep breath and lets the tunnel vision take over.

 

_Eyes on the prize, Jordan._

 

Her line takes to the ice again. This time they’re a lot messier, and Jordan has to admit that she’s one of the main reasons why. She’s all over the place and not communicating with anyone, but that’s okay-- it works for her.

 

Eventually Celeste’s team gets possession again down at their end of the ice in a messy exchange of passes that Jordan barely keeps up with. At the end of it her eyes are trained on the puck, now at the blade of one of the other team’s defenders-- is it Courtney? She thinks it's Courtney-- as she skates against the boards up to the neutral zone. Jordan is the closest to her and she knows exactly what to do.

 

Jordan isn't a superstar. Some of her coaches have called her a playmaker, which is true sometimes, but overestimates how good she works on a team. Others say she’s a real grinder, which, to be fair, isn’t inaccurate. She works hard, isn’t usually a leading scorer, but knows where she’s needed on the ice. It’s still not the perfect name for what she does, though.

 

Really, to be completely honest, Jordan is an enforcer. An old-fashioned goon. She plays  _r_ _ough._

 

Courtney goes down hard as Jordan slams into her left shoulder, hitting the boards and then crumpling to the ice as everyone else goes silent.

 

Oops. Looking back, Jordan recognizes that she hit with a little bit more force than was necessary. What can she say, though-- she’s a little overenthusiastic. It’s not a bad quality, usually. She stands straight, holds her head high, and squares her shoulders--

 

Then she freezes as Celeste skates directly in front of her, stopping inches away and tilting her head up to get into Jordan’s face.

 

“What the _fuck_ was that?” says Celeste.

 

Shit.


	2. walking cross the campus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Celeste's oldest friend but soon discover that we all know and love him already. Also, there's breakfast, an interview, and beer pong (but no beer?).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our first chapter from Celeste's point of view, which is a hell of a lot harder to write than Jordan's! The next chapter will be back to Jordan's POV and they will continue alternating from there. 
> 
> In addition, because I didn't clarify in the first chapter, I'd like to point out that this story begins in fall 2013, which coincides with Bitty's freshman year at Samwell!
> 
> Shoutouts for this chapter: Ngozi for creating omgcp, and every single person who left comments on the first chapter. Thank you so much for that! It means a lot to me that people take a few seconds to give me feedback! :)

Celeste sits down across from Jack for their weekly coffee not-date with her standard double espresso. She keeps her guilty pleasures to a minimum, but coffee is one of the few things she splurges on. “Good morning,” she says in French. The only time they’ve ever spoken English together when conversing one-on-one was the summer before they both started their freshman year at Samwell, mostly for Celeste’s benefit, since she doesn’t have the advantage of having a primarily English-speaking parent.

 

“Morning,” Jack says, nodding once at her before returning to stacking sugar packets into a pyramid he’s building next to his plate. He’s never been chatty, but there was a time many years ago when he was nowhere near this gruff. Celeste is confident in her ability to get him out of his shell, though. Step one is actually starting a conversation to which he can contribute.

 

“Our first practice didn’t go great. I have a rookie with a bit of a physicality problem,” she says, sipping at her drink.

 

“Huh.” Jack tears at his pastry-- dry and a little stale, Celeste knows from all the times she’s ordered food from Annie’s. Jack orders one each week, though-- it’s like Celeste and her coffee. His sweet tooth is secret but powerful. “Me too. Too timid on the ice?”

 

“Jordan’s the opposite, actually. Overconfident. Not much of a team player. And too violent-- she took down Courtney during practice.” Just thinking about it again is enough to make Celeste seethe, balling one hand into a fist and then releasing. She’s played hockey for nearly two decades and she’s  _ never  _ seen anyone hit a fellow teammate that hard.

 

Once again, all Jack has to say is, “Huh.” 

 

She gives him a second, two second, ten seconds of silence to gather his thoughts. “Mine can’t take a check. He’s terrified of them. Maybe we can make a trade, eh?”

 

Now  _ that’s  _ the good old Zimmermann sense of humor.

 

Celeste smirks. “I’m sure she’d love it. We’ve only had two practices so far and I’ve already overheard her complaining about how her old team was better. She’s got such an attitude about being on a women’s team.”

 

“I’ll take her off your hands, then.” 

 

“I hate to admit it, but she could probably be decent playing men’s at this level. Not a lead scorer by any means, but the size issue would probably be minimal,” Celeste says, reaching across the table to tear off a piece of Jack’s pastry and pop it into her mouth.

 

Jack swats at her hand without any real animosity. “Really?” 

 

Celeste nods. “She has to be 160, maybe 170 pounds of solid muscle. I can’t even imagine how much she trains for that. I just wish she’d bring that discipline onto the ice, you know?”

 

“Maybe I'll see her around the gym. What's she look like?” 

 

“Brown hair, tall, freckles-- I think hazel eyes? Maybe green, though. Blue-green?” Celeste scowls, trying to remember. They’d stood out to her at practice-- big eyes that stood out to her even though Jordan has a tendency of narrowing them at her.

 

Jack looks at her for a second, expression unreadable even for her. He looks like he’s going to say something, then pauses and thinks again before speaking. “Mm. I’ll look out for her at your home opener.”

 

“You’re away at Brown that weekend.”

 

“Oh, right. Forgot. Your game the weekend before Halloween, then.”

 

“Aw, Jacky remembers a holiday for once. Will you actually wear a costume this year?” Celeste teases, then kicks him under the table and they spar for a few moments. 

 

This distracts them from the conversation long enough for Celeste to finish her coffee. They clean up their table while she teases him about Halloween costume ideas and don’t return to the topic of hockey until they’re leaving the cafe, stepping out into a brisk September day that smells faintly of burning leaves.

 

They walk together in easy silence for a few minutes in the direction of their respective team houses before Jack speaks again.

 

“Is the rest of the team uncomfortable with her? Jordan, I mean? After she took down Courtney?”

 

“God, no. The opposite, actually-- Courtney was impressed, once Jordan apologized. She bought her dinner and basically adopted her. They're bringing her to the house nearly every night now.”

 

“So why are you so unhappy with her on the team?” Jack says, stopping at the sidewalk corner where they part ways.

 

“I never said--” 

 

“Celeste. I know how you talk about people you don’t like. You make a face.”

 

“I do not.” 

 

“Do too.”

 

Celeste sighs, because Jack does know her well. “She’s not a team player at all. I don’t have much tolerance for that kind of attitude. She’s completely disregarding how the team works.”

 

“Meaning, you can see exactly how far your team could go and you don’t want this one thing getting in the way of it?” Jack asks, craning his neck to see his Haus. Celeste wonders, for a moment, if he’s checking to make sure it hasn’t burned down or been otherwise destroyed in his absence. It wouldn’t surprise her. She has, unfortunately, met Ransom and Holster several times.

 

She nods, almost opens her mouth to add more (along the lines of “she makes snarky comments during practice when I’m trying to talk, and she blatantly disregards my advice, and she’s  _ always  _ smirking at something”), then sees that Jack is about to speak again and shuts it. 

 

“I know how that feels.”

 

Celeste nods. She and Jack aren’t exactly the same type of captain, but they both have heard plenty of complaints that they’re a little bit  _ too  _ invested in their teams. Dedication is something they’ve both always had a little healthy competition over, basking in compliments about their commitment and passion. It motivates them and Celeste loves it. 

 

Loved it, that is. She’s seen how it-- the ridiculous pursuit of perfection-- can backfire on them, so she stops herself from adding more fuel to that fire.

 

“So I guess we actually have to do the mature thing and help them out instead of hating them. Have you tried working one-on-one with yours?” she says.

 

“My-- Bittle?” 

 

“If that’s your rookie, then yes. For the checking thing.”

 

“That was the first thing I considered. I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of drills will help.”

 

“Mm.” Celeste thinks for a moment. “Maybe drills aren’t what he needs. Physicality is more of a mental thing, isn’t it?” She hates that she phrases it as a question, because she knows it is. She really does.

 

Jack does too, but not like she does-- only in a removed, hypothetical way. She sees him processing it in his brain, eyes lowered while he thinks.  “Oh. Yeah. It’s a block.” 

 

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

 

“I think I can work with that,” he says, and Celeste flashes him a perfect, well-practiced smile before giving him a side hug and turning in the direction of her house.

 

“Text me to let me know how it goes,” she says, over her shoulder.

 

“Hey.” 

 

She stops, turns.

 

“You too, okay? Try to work with yours before you decide she’s not worth it,” Jack says.

 

Celeste rolls her eyes, but shrugs. “I’ll do my best. She’s a handful.”

 

“You like a project. You took me in, didn’t you?”

 

She shakes her head, fondly. “Yes, and you’re still a little shit.”

 

Jack smiles, wider than she’s seen him smile in a while, and she takes a mental note of that image before she waves and turns to go home.

 

\\_._/

 

The Samwell Women’s Hockey house isn’t exactly an official team house. For one, the team has only rented it for four years, so it’s hardly the traditional home of the team. It also technically is just rented by four girls who happen to be on the team, which is part of a half-hearted effort to prevent the team from being held responsible for anything that happens at parties there.

 

It’s Celeste’s second year in the house, but this year she’s upgraded from the small, dark bedroom in the basement to a nice big one on the second floor with a window that overlooks the roof over the porch. She likes the natural light that pours in during the morning and how it’s actually a pretty good place to escape during parties. Ani and Courtney are living in the other bedrooms on the second floor and Celeste is fairly happy with the arrangement-- both of them have reasonable bedtimes, and even though Courtney is a bit of a party animal, she respects Celeste’s space. 

 

The lottery system used to assign rooms had dictated at the end of last semester that SWH’s backup goalie, a rising senior, would be the one to live in the basement room, but the girl had emailed Celeste halfway through the summer to tell her that she was dropping hockey to focus on academics.

 

Ridiculous. 

 

Anyway, that means that Sierra is now living in the basement, and it seems, unfortunately, that Johanna has basically moved in with her. Like that room has the space for two people. 

 

When Celeste enters the house and kicks off her shoes she heads straight to the kitchen, finally ready for a plate of eggs and maybe some toast. She is not expecting to see five of her teammates gathered around the kitchen table. 

 

In fact, the sight makes her do a double take. What? It’s nine in the morning on a Sunday. The only ones she could reasonably see being awake are Ani, because she sometimes jogs in the mornings, and Sierra, because Celeste is pretty certain that she never sleeps anyway.  

 

But here they are, every resident of the house (“we can’t keep calling it the house-- it needs a name,” Courtney has been insisting lately), plus Jordan Kelly, around the table and playing-- beer pong?

 

“OJ pong,” Courtney says, before Celeste even has a chance to ask. 

 

“I’m sorry, what?” Celeste says. 

 

“Orange juice pong,” Anisa clarifies. “Courtney decided that Jordan needs to know how to play all the standard drinking games before our first mixer.”

 

“I’ve been to parties before, guys,” Jordan says, exasperated, and Celeste gets the feeling that this isn’t the first time she’s said that today.

 

“And yet you say you’ve never played pong. Sounds like you were at baby parties,” Courtney says, arms crossed while she surveys the game.

 

“Which are for babies,” Sierra adds as she sinks the ball in. Joanna cheers and they do a complicated handshake that makes Celeste dizzy enough to look away. 

 

“But it’s nine in the morning,” Celeste says, still not grasping anything about this situation. She steps over to the table and puts one hand on Courtney’s arm, just below her shoulder, where she still has a bruise from where Jordan checked her. Celeste can barely look at it.  “I definitely remember you telling me to never wake you before noon on the weekend.”

 

Courtney, in turn, tugs on Celeste’s ponytail. “We’re up early so we can meet with our new manager. 

 

“Our-- what? We haven’t agreed on a new manager yet. We haven’t even interviewed anyone,” Celeste says, turning to look at Ani to see if she’ll back her up. 

 

Ani shrugs, then turns to Sierra. “Told you she’d be mad.”

 

Celeste frowns. She’s not mad. She’s not happy about this, though.

 

Sierra puts her hands up in a universal gesture of surrender. “Hey, don’t blame me. We all thought it was a good idea.” She chugs one of the cups of orange juice after Courtney lands the ball, then turns back to Celeste. “It was late. You were already asleep.”

 

“Last night?” Celeste asks.

 

“Yeah, when we had a few of the girls over. You know Lauren-- the sophomore who tried out?”

 

“Left wing, played on the lacrosse team last year?” Celeste was very happy with her skill. She was a bit concerned about how committed the girl would be if she’d already quit one team, but she was clearly an experienced player and the coaches thought she’d be a good fit, even after a year of barely playing. 

 

“Yeah, that’s the one. She’s bringing over her boyfriend and he is  _ very  _ interested in being our new manager. We talked about it with Lauren last night. You’re so busy that we figured we could deal with the manager thing ourselves.”

 

Celeste really isn’t thrilled about this, but she’s been told that she needs to stop overworking herself and learn to delegate, so she sighs. “Fine, we’ll talk to the kid. Do we have interview questions ready?”

 

“Does it need to be that formal? Can’t we just, like, get a feel for him?” Jordan asks, right before she lunges to throw the ball and manages to fall right onto the table, tipping three of her own cups. “Ow.”

 

The girls launch into a chorus of “Rookie!” while Jordan flushes and stands back up, shirtfront soaked with orange juice. 

 

Celeste waits for all of them to stop giggling before simply saying “No” and turning to go upstairs to get changed. She’s not going to meet a potential manager in ripped leggings and a stained SWH hoodie. 

 

She showers and changes into clean leggings and a clean SWH t-shirt. Much better. 

 

By the time she gets back downstairs the surface of the kitchen table has been cleaned of solo cups and the orange juice carton and recovered with a fairly respectable breakfast spread of scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, and a clear plastic carton of strawberries. Anisa’s handiwork, most likely. If it’s anything like her normal cooking the toast will be a little burnt and the eggs somewhat overdone, but still edible if she scarfs them down too quickly to taste them.

 

Celeste gets a plate and fills it up before sitting down at one of the several folding chairs that always sit around the table. She braces herself as she scoops up a forkful of scrambled eggs and sticks it into her mouth. 

 

Oh. These are  _ good. _

 

“Is this a new recipe?” Celeste asks Anisa, tapping her ankle under the table with her foot to get her attention.

 

“What?” Anisa swallows a mouthful of toast. “Oh-- I didn't make this. Jordan did.”

 

Celeste turns in her seat to look at Jordan, who is wolfing down bacon at the end of the table. She's licking grease off one finger when Celeste meets her eyes. 

 

“The eggs are decent,” Celeste says 

 

“High praise,” Jordan replies, easy, a little cool. She takes another bite of bacon. “Don't be too impressed. Breakfast food is all I'm good at.”

 

“How come?” asks Courtney. 

 

“Uh, because breakfast is the best meal?” Jordan says. 

 

“Damn straight,” Sierra says before she reaches across Celeste to grab another piece of toast. “Can you do pancakes? Waffles? Ooh, omelets?”

 

“Yeah. I’m best at anything with eggs. Any possible egg recipe. God, we always have way too many eggs at home.”

 

“How come?” asks Johanna.

 

“Uh, because of chickens?” 

 

“You have chickens?” Sierra’s brow raises. She’s a born and bred city girl, so Celeste isn’t surprised that this has caught her interest.  “Wow. That’s real country.”

 

“Yeah? It’s not that country. I’ve done plenty of things more country than raising chickens.”

 

Sierra grins, and it seems to Celeste that she’s already thrilled by where this is going. “Why, do tell me, Jordan-- what’s the most country thing you’ve done?”

 

Jordan smiles, wider even than the smirk she usually aims in Celeste’s direction. She has a crooked tooth on the top row. “Cow tippin’, probably.”

 

She drawls it: prolly. It irritates Celeste, French-speaker by birth and English by learning later on, that she drops so many syllables. And talks so fast. Okay, a lot of things about Jordan get on her nerves. 

 

The girls laugh and beg Jordan to tell them that story and Jordan basks in the attention. Celeste can easily imagine her in high school, the class clown, living for giggles from classmates while her teachers tried desperately to get her to quiet down. God, those kids are annoying.

 

Celeste decides not to encourage their antics by being entertained by the story and gets up to start washing breakfast dishes, which isn’t even assigned to her on the chore chart this week. She so gets caught up in the action of rinsing, scrubbing, and setting everything on the drying rack that she doesn’t even notice that Jordan is done telling her story until a hand takes the next plate out of her hand before it comes to rest on the rack.

 

It’s Jordan, of course. She’s holding one of the dish rags that are always left out on the counter and she starts to dry the plate as soon as she’s tugged it out of Celeste’s hand.

 

Celeste means to say thank you, but instead worry takes over for a moment and she says, “Don’t drop it.” She saw Jordan trip three times in the same hour during team dinner on Friday. The girl can barely stay on her own two feet.

 

Jordan rolls her eyes. “Of course, Captain,” she says, and it bleeds with sarcasm.

 

They work side by side for a few minutes and Celeste is surprised by how efficient they are. Within five minutes they’re done with the dishes, and Celeste is just showing Jordan which cupboard the plates belong in when the doorbell rings. 

 

“Got it!” Courtney and Sierra both shout at the same time. They fix each other with equally sharp looks before racing to the entryway. A moment later, Celeste hears the crash of them hitting the front door, and a significant amount of swearing. 

 

Anisa sighs and follows them. Johanna stands and retrieves a jar of peanut butter from another cupboard, then leaves the kitchen through the sliding door that opens out into the backyard with it. Jordan watches her leave and turns to Celeste, who shrugs before she can even voice a question. Celeste gave up trying to understand Johanna Johansson a long time ago. 

 

Celeste waits another minute, steadfastly avoiding looking or talking at Jordan for the sake of not wanting to start any arguments, before she heads to the living room.

 

“Hi, Lauren. Hi, Lauren’s boyfriend. The rest of you get out.” Celeste emphasizes this by pointing back at the kitchen, and thankfully, her girls all file back out of the room, leaving her alone with Lauren and the boy.

 

Celeste likes Lauren. She’s assertive but not pushy, speaks clearly,  and seems like she always knows what she wants. Celeste’s only had a few chances to talk with her, but she’s learned that she’s a business major, which doesn’t surprise her. She can see Lauren becoming a CEO or something like that someday.

 

Her boyfriend, on the other hand, looks like he rides a bike everywhere and plays banjo in a folk band. Somehow, before she even looks at his feet, Celeste knows that he’s wearing Birkenstocks. 

 

She looks down. He’s wearing Birkenstocks. She doesn’t know how to feel about this. 

 

“Hi, I’m Tyler!” he says before she has any more time to contemplate his feet. When he sticks out his hand for her to shake she is forced to look back up again. He’s also wearing a short-sleeve, mustard yellow button shirt and big glasses with dark frames. 

 

They shake hands. His hand is loose in her tight grip. “Celeste Lefebvre.”

 

“Le-fave?” he repeats, cocking his head and watching her expression to see if he’s pronounced it correctly. 

 

He’s close enough. “Yes. It’s hard to spell,” she says and lets go of his hand.

 

“It looks like ‘the fever,’ but in French,” Lauren says. She’s sitting on the couch. That’s a great idea, Celeste decides. She sits down at the armchair and waves for Tyler to sit next to Lauren. 

 

“It doesn’t mean fever,” Celeste says. It’s a common misconception and she’s heard it enough that she just launches into her spiel instead of pausing to explain the etymology of her surname. “Can we talk about your qualifications for this position?” she asks without bothering with any more niceties, because at this point she’s a little concerned that Tyler is just an artsy white boy who smokes too much and isn’t actually capable of anything manager-related.

 

“Oh, yeah.” Tyler reaches into his messenger bag-- canvas, more of a satchel if Celeste is being honest with herself-- and pulls out a folder to hand over.

 

She opens it. It’s a resume and it’s neat enough. Sure enough, he’s worked a year as the manager of the Samwell Women’s Lacrosse team. 

 

“How’d you even get into managing?” she asks, genuinely curious. Nothing in his resume suggests that he’s ever done anything involving athletics prior to that. 

 

“Uh, I’m kind of into photography and I had a gig with the Daily going to different games and taking pictures. But I really needed an actual consistent job and I got to chatting with lax’s captain and it just kind of fell into place.”

 

“Mm.” Celeste nods and hands the folder back over. “Our main expectations for our manager would be attending all games and most practices, filming games, managing equipment, doing laundry-- that sort of thing. Sounds about the same as what you did for lax?”

 

“Oh, yeah. I’m great at laundry.”

 

“He really is,” Lauren says. “That boy could get a stain out of anything.”

 

“That’s great. Honestly, you sound perfect for the job, Tyler. I just have one concern.”

 

Tyler grips his folder tight. “And that’s…?”

 

“Why are you two expats from the lacrosse team now? My team needs reliability. I don’t want anyone, player or staff, to be spending only a year with us before quitting.”

 

Tyler and Lauren both look at each other, then break down into laughter. Celeste waits for them to calm down, then fixes them with a Celeste Lefebvre Patented Raised Eyebrow, as Sierra calls it. 

 

“Oh, god. You don’t even want to know the full story,” Lauren says. “It would take a long time to explain it all. We mainly left because we were sick of drama and wanted to, you know, actually do sports instead of spend our time avoiding our team.”

 

“Then can I trust you not to make drama on  _ my _ team?” Celeste asks. It’s a genuine question-- sure, SWH suffers through the occasional spat between Courtney and Sierra, and that one time Zoe and Chloe fought was rough on everyone, and then there’s whatever the hell is going on between Jordan and her, but really, they’re relatively drama-free, and Celeste wants to keep it that way.

 

“No drama. Pinky promise,” Tyler says, and offers his pinky. Celeste figures that’s as good as she’s going to get and hooks pinkies with him. They really do desperately need a manager, and this seems to be as good as they’re going to get. 

 

“Alright. You’re hired. Once we get the paperwork through the Campus Center, I mean. You two can go chill with the girls if you want,” Celeste says, nodding to the kitchen. 

 

The two of them stand up, knock shoulders, and shove playfully as they head into the kitchen. Celeste stands to follow, then reconsiders. She’s finished all of her homework due in the next week, but she does have a ton of studying she can do for one of her engineering classes, so she heads upstairs to work on that. 

 

As usual, she ends up buried in her work for several hours. She has a tendency to get into a zone and forget about everything else until she’s satisfied with her work. Today, finishing a practice test with a score of 96% is satisfactory, so she shuts her laptop and her stomach reminds her with a growl that it’s time for a late lunch. 

 

She decides to go downstairs and make a smoothie, because Celeste Lefebvre lives on smoothies. As she’s taking the stairs she hears voices drifting up from the kitchen and recognizes one (loud, fast, nasally accent) as Jordan.

 

Huh. She’s been over for a while now. Celeste wonders if she’s ever even met her roommate. Curiosity makes her pause on the bottom step, just out of view of the doorway to the kitchen.

 

“Jack Zimmermann? No way,” Jordan is saying, and this automatically makes Celeste bristle with apprehension. Almost every time she’s heard anyone talk about Jack since the overdose has been bad. Everyone seems to think they know what happened and they’re all wrong. God, even Celeste is foggy on the details, but she knows they’re wrong.

 

“That’s so cool. His dad is such a legend. I mean, I knew that he’s going here-- that’s one of the main reasons I decided on Samwell, you know? It really tells you a lot about the caliber of the hockey here,” Jordan continues. “But I didn’t realize that he and Celeste are-- wait. You said they do this every week?”

 

“Uh, yeah. Sunday coffee with the hockey prodigies. It’s a thing,” Sierra says. 

 

It sounds like it’s just those two in the kitchen. Celeste waits, silent. 

 

“Oh-- shit, are they dating?” Jordan says. Celeste can hear the shock. 

 

“Jack and Celeste?” Sierra also, thank God, sounds shocked at the mere suggestion. “God, no. They could never be together. They would be--ruthlessly efficient. Terrifying, honestly.”

 

“So it’s just-- what, a purely hockey-based companionship?”

 

“I mean, sort of? They’ve just been friends for like, a million years.”

 

Celeste decides that now is a good time to enter the conversation and does so by walking into the kitchen and saying, “We met when I was in Pre-K. I kicked him in the shin because he liked the Penguins.”

 

Jordan and Sierra are sitting at the table, Sierra with her tablet and laptop in front of her and Jordan holding a textbook that she’s barely looking at while they chat. They look up as Celeste enters and starts pulling ingredients out of the fridge for her smoothie.

 

“That’s fair,” says Sierra, who is a diehard Bruins fan. 

 

“Then we just kind of became friends from there,” Celeste finishes. She’s told the story plenty times before, to everyone from teammates to sports journalists.

 

They’re all silenced by the whir of the blender for a minute. 

 

“And I’m pretty sure they were spending hours watching tape and planning plays together by third grade,” Sierra adds once Celeste has stopped the blender and started pouring her smoothie into a glass.

 

Celeste glances over her shoulder to see Jordan considering this, biting her lower lip as she thinks. 

 

“Of course they were.” She pauses and flips a page in her textbook, even though Celeste is fairly certain she hasn’t read any of the page she was on. “See, I was playing hockey by third grade, but I’m pretty sure I spent my spare time pulling pranks and, like, running over frogs with the lawn mower for fun,” Jordan says. 

 

“You were a sick child,” Sierra says. 

 

“Pretty sure I’ve only gotten worse,” Jordan says, flashing her a grin. 

  
Celeste shakes her head disapprovingly, then leaves the kitchen with her smoothie. Rookies. You can’t bring them  _ anywhere. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Campus by Vampire Weekend. 
> 
> While it isn't mentioned explicitly in this chapter, I'd like for you all to know that Jordan Kelly, like Holster and yours truly, hails from western NY, which means when you ask her where she's from she says "Rochester," but pronounces the o in the most ugly, nasally way you could imagine. 
> 
> Celeste, on the other hand, is from the suburbs on Montreal and is the daughter of two French-Canadians. She went to a dual language school, but she definitely has a standard Quebecois accent. 
> 
> Next up: SWH plays their first game of the season, we discover that Jack isn't the only hockey superstar at Samwell, and our rookies? They're gonna get HAZED. 
> 
> As always, I'm @hockeydyke on tumblr and commenting means the world to me!


	3. it's not just all physical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, a game is played, rookies get hazed, and Jordan learns something very important about Celeste Lefebvre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple content warnings for this one: internalized sexism, internalized homophobia, perceived homophobia, drinking to the point of being very drunk, and hazing. The hazing is fairly typical but done with the explicit consent of the rookies, which is the best way to do it. Not that I would know, of course. I definitely haven't been hazed. That's not allowed! Haha, definitely not. B) 
> 
> Unbeta'd as usually. Sorry for that.
> 
> Only shoutout in this chapter is to Ngozi, to whom OMGCP belongs.

Women’s team or not, hockey is hockey. Jordan may occasionally stick her tongue out at Celeste when she turns around to skate a drill, but she does also listen to her sometimes. She even gets a word of praise after a passing drill the week before their season opener and it’s embarrassing how much it makes her flush with pleasure. There. She’s not a hopeless case, after all. 

Of course, it’s right back to the constant arguing and sarcasm after that, but it’s a nice moment while it lasts. She still feels out of sync with the rest of the team, but it’s getting better. Intentional checking isn’t legal in NCAA women’s hockey, but that definitely doesn’t mean the game lacks physicality. Jordan’s changing the details of her game but not the game itself. 

But yeah, sure-- she’ll admit it. She still needs work adapting.

That’s not even the only area where Jordan is struggling to find balance. There’s also the locker room. 

God, even just thinking about it makes her worry at first. Her cubby is next to Lauren’s, which is cool, she likes Lauren-- but that’s kind of the issue. 

She knows how boys act in the dressing room, both before and after games. She definitely knows-- she’s heard plenty of stories on the subject from her teammates back in high school, and despite the horror stories that come out of the subject, it’s always made her seethe with jealousy. After all, getting changed is kind of major team bonding time. 

She’s always been the only girl on her team, except for in elementary school when she played Mites and there were other girls, but really, they barely noticed the difference at that age. Jordan changed in the locker room with the boys then. No big deal.

Then puberty happen and most of the other girls switched out to girl’s teams, leaving Jordan to hurry up putting on her pads alone in bathrooms, referee rooms, and even storage closets on occasion. The few times she’s played against a team with another girl they’ve taken turns with the limited changing space or just gave each other space and avoided eye contact. 

Basically, Jordan doesn’t know what to do in the SWH locker room.

I mean, for all intents and purposes, it’s exactly like what she’s heard about boys’ locker rooms. There’s a lot of arguing over who gets to play music. It doesn’t smell great. Team members pull pranks with alarming frequency. It’s basically another part all of the daily banter that Jordan is finding herself to be a part of on the team, except for one key detail.

Less clothes. 

And Jordan, well. Is a lesbian. 

Except that’s not exactly the problem. Like, she’s not gawking at any of her teammates (don’t get her wrong, though-- several of them are very hot), so it’s not like she’s going to lose control around them or anything. She’s gay, not a wild animal.

The issue is that it feels like high school gym class all over again. Do they feel her eyes on them? She swears she’s not intentionally checking them out but she knows that other girls assume that it happens-- hell, she wasn’t even really out in high school, but she had short hair and wore clothes from the men’s department, so all of her peers made some assumptions for her. She’s used to glares in the hallway, rushed exits from the bathrooms as soon as she enters, all that shit. 

In high school she responded with snide comments and intimidation, which worked great. After all-- if people already think you’re a bitter, dangerous girl, you give them what they want to see and it scares them off before they dare mess with you.

But that’s not the right approach to take with people she has to play on a team with. She doesn’t want anyone on SWH to think she’s creepy. Hell, she’s pretty sure some of them are already scared of her. No need to make it worse by, you know, being obvious about all the lesbian shit.

The first day of practice she changes in the locker room with everyone else and it makes her feel like she’s doing something wrong. Like she’s still in the wrong room.

So for a while, she doesn’t get changed there. She drops off her bag, grabs her pads, and rushes off to get ready in the handicapped bathroom stall, since it’s the only one where she can stretch out her arms without constantly bumping against the wall. It works pretty well-- she avoids the bulk of the changing process and she can still hear most of what her teammates say from the next room over, so it’s almost like she’s in there with them. It’s good. She feels safe.

Sometimes she thinks she doesn’t even need to be that careful. After all, even after she took down Courtney-- especially after that-- the team has made a point of adopting her. They invite her to their house all the time. She’s gone to two parties there with them and they didn’t make fun of her bad dancing. And now it’s October and she’s just won a game with them. 

In fact, she got very decent ice time for a rookie and she plays the third line for the game. This surprises her, but Coach Lewis pats her shoulder before the game and tells her she’s been working well with Lauren, so he’s trying out putting them there together. 

What surprises Jordan even more is that Celeste isn’t playing on the first line. Sure, Jordan doesn’t exactly like her, but she can admit that Celeste is probably the best player that she’s ever been on a roster with. Her speed is what caught Jordan’s attention first, but she’s also an absolute genius at anticipating where everyone else is moving on the ice, when she should pass, where to dump the puck-- all of it. She skates like she’s above the game, and it’s true-- she’s better than all of them. 

Of course, once that first game starts, Jordan understands why Celeste isn’t starting. 

She’s afraid. 

Not of the puck, but of the other players. It’s obvious the moment she steps on the ice. Jordan does a double-take from the bench, wondering if it’s possible that someone else stepped into Celeste’s sweater and is pretending to be her on the ice, because she skates like an entirely different person. She’s shaky and skits away from other players at the first sign of them approaching. 

It frustrates the hell out of Jordan. What is Celeste-- all talk and no show? Who is she to talk down to Jordan constantly if she can barely even play?

Well. Maybe that’s an exaggeration-- Celeste can still play, and boy, does she play. Ani sauces her a pass five minutes into the first period that she smoothly puts in the back of the net after faking out the other team’s goalie. She then spends the rest of the game avoiding the other team’s defensewomen, who have clearly realized that a little intimidation will keep her from being a threat.

Jordan doesn’t really know what to think about all of this. Anyway. Whatever. What Jordan really cares about is, you know, Jordan. She doesn’t score, but she assists the thrilling game-winning goal from Lauren in the last three minutes of the third period and yeah, she’s running on an adrenaline high and she feels great. She expresses this by giving out a lot of back pats as they parade toward the dressing room and even with shouting a loud WHOOP! in Celeste’s ear, which gets her a grin instead of a scolding, for once.

She’s buzzing and alive and happy as she gathers up her sweatpants and hoodie and turns to head into the bathroom section of the locker room and heads for her usual stall--

Only to see Courtney standing there, arms crossed, in front of the stall doors. Her skates and jersey are off but she’s still wearing the rest of her pads. Her socked feet are standing in the middle of a wet patch from where Jordan had spilled water from her Gatorade bottle before the game but it doesn’t seem to bother her at all.

Jordan’s post-game high vanishes in a second and she feels her blood run cold. “Do you, uh, need something?”

“Not really. Just wanna talk.”

“Oh. Cool.” Jordan toys with the hem of her jersey, looking down at it to avoid meeting Courtney’s eyes. “What about?”

Courtney hums. “Well. I don’t want to overstep boundaries, and like, I respect your decisions, but I noticed that you don’t change in the room with everyone else.”

Jordan feels herself flushing. Shit. Shit shit shit. Courtney knows. She has to. Jordan is so caught up in this that it takes her a few seconds too long to realize that she’s supposed to be acknowledging Courtney. Right. That’s how conversations work.

“Um. Yeah?” she says. Her voice is an octave higher than usual. Her t-shirt slips out of her fingers and she ducks her head to watch it fall to the wet tile floor.

Courtney continues while Jordan takes a knee to pick it up. “I don’t want to assume things, but I kind of had a similar problem my freshman year? I was really worried about what the team would think of me. But, like. This is a women’s sport team, and not to stereotype, but what I was worried about really wasn’t an issue with them at all.”

God, Jordan hopes that they’re on the same page here. She reaches, grabs her shirt, grips it tightly in her fingers. Now or never. Before she has a chance to change her mind she looks at the floor and says, “I’m a lesbian.” 

She stays there on the floor, kneeling, shirt fisted in her hands, frozen. In the next room she hears Sierra and Johanna singing “We Are the Champions.”

Jordan finally looks up at Courtney a moment later. Courtney is flashing her a big smile. Courtney is not waving an accusatory finger at her and shunning her from the locker room. 

“Cool. Thanks for telling me. I’m bi. Like I said, not to stereotype, but this is a women’s team. You’re definitely not the only one,” she says.

Jordan stands and straightens up to her full height again. The post-game adrenaline high is back, and even stronger than it was before. She feels like she’s overflowing with energy-- she wants to jump up and down, wave her arms, all of that. “Does everyone know I’m gay? I mean, I know I look like a lesbian, everyone says that, I’m kind of butch, but like, sometimes people don’t want to assume, but really, I am, and I wasn’t sure how to say it to everyone? I want them to know. But I don’t know how to bring it up,” Jordan rambles.

“Take a breath. Uh, I mean, we didn’t know for sure, but we can’t help gossiping about the rookies sometimes. You tell them when you’re ready. But they’ll take it in stride. I promise.”

“Okay” Jordan isn’t really sure what else to say to express her gratitude, so she steps forward and gives Courtney a bear hug, squeezing until Courtney yelps and bats her away. 

“God, I’m glad we had this moment, but please don’t break my arms,” Courtney says, but with no anger in her voice. 

Jordan releases her and settles for slinging an arm around her shoulder and before she knows it Courtney has walked her back into the locker room and over to her cubby, where Jordan finally drops her wet shirt. 

The part of Jordan that makes impulsive decisions feeds off of adrenaline. It takes over now. “Hey, guys. I’m a lesbian!” 

The girls respond almost immediately with another round of yells and cheers. Jordan feels extra alive.

Courtney, still at her side, gives her a fist bump, then lifts her arm with one hand and reaches to lift Lauren’s with the other. 

“Another round of applause for our lax girl and baby butch, please!” she says, eyes bright. 

The team responds with the requested applause and Jordan and Lauren spend a few minutes being ushered around the room for a variety of post-game celebration photos for instagram.

It’s almost ten minutes later when they’re finally allowed to return to their cubbies, where Jordan sits down and finally, finally, gets changed, smiling the whole time. When she finishes and looks up she meets Lauren’s eyes and see that she has a big grin too. God, she loves this team.

\\_._/

Jordan fucking hates this team. It’s 8am. It’s a Saturday. They don’t even have practice and their game was last night, so she should be sleeping in right now. Courtney and Ani have already warned all the rookies to clear their schedules for a mandatory team social in the evening, but that’s hours away. Jordan needs her sleep. 

Yet, here she is, woken up unfairly by her roommate throwing a pillow at her face. She sits up and pretends it hurt, rubbing at her forehead where it hit. “Jesus, Sarah. What the fuck. It’s 8am.”

“Exactly. Answer the fucking door. It’s for you.”

Oh. Now that Sarah mentions it, there is a lot of knocking going on at the door of their room. Jordan sits up and pulls a pair of jeans on over her sweatpants, sniffs at the ratty Las Vegas Aces t-shirt she was sleeping in, decides it’s not too smelly, opens the door, and steps out into the hallway.

Huh. That’s funny. No one is-- 

Everything goes dark as something soft is slung over her head, blinding her. She swings a punch and makes contact with what seems to be a chin. 

“Fuck, Jordan! Lay off!”

Oh. She recognizes that voice. “Sierra?”

“Yes!”

“Me too! It’s my shirt you’re wearing as a blindfold. Don’t rip,” another voice pipes in. Swedish accent. It’s Johanna.

“Oh. Are you, uh. Kidnapping me?”

“Yup,” says Sierra, hooking elbows with Jordan and leading her down the hallway. Jordan hears the click of the elevator button being pressed. They enter it. 

“Am I being hazed?” Jordan asks, once they’re inside and the doors are closed.

“In the eyes of Samwell University Student Code of Conduct? Definitely not. That’s against the rules,” Sierra says. 

“Rules are meant to break,” Johanna echoes. 

Jordan is kind of thrilled with this. She’s heard exciting stuff about hazing. Horror stories, too, but she doubts the team is going to make her murder someone or eat a live fish. Hopefully this just involves getting drunk for free, even if she has to drink shitty light beer to make that happen.

Sure enough, after a preliminary hour of being marched around campus blindfolded, Jordan is brought to Faber, where she’s let loose on the ice with the other rookies. They’re finally allowed to take off the blindfolds after they spend a few minutes slipping around on the ice in their shoes, trying to find each other. Jordan can hear laughter from the stands the entire time.

When she takes off her blindfold, most of the team is there, watching the rookies stumble around the ice. It’s all in good fun, so Jordan breaks into her normal cackly laugh and helps Lauren get her blindfold off.

The rest of the day is similarly filled with mild humiliation and team bonding. The rookies complete a race, climb some trees, wrestle in mud in the backyard of the house, and the upperclassmen make sure they stay hydrated and check to make sure they’re good with every activity before they start. After the mud wrestling they’re sent home to shower and get changed and instructed to go back to the house after dinner.

That’s when the party begins and the rookies get drunk. 

That’s kind of the whole point, really. Jordan spends half an hour drinking three cans of beer because she’s a freshman and that’s how you do it. That’s followed with three rounds of beer pong, which she’s still awful at, and two cups of jungle juice that she tries not to spill while she dances to old 80s music with Sierra and all of the other people in the house’s living room. Where did all of these people come from? Jordan’s not sure but she’s glad they’re there. This is so much fun. 

Then she slips in a puddle of an unidentified liquid and falls hard, her right knee hitting the floor first and taking all of her weight in one big bump. “Fuck!” 

She struggles to her feet and is immediately dizzy. Wow. She’s drunker than she thought.

“You good?” Sierra asks. She’s also drunk, but much less so than Jordan. 

“I need ice,” Jordan says. Everything is kind of spinning. “I’m going to the fridge.” 

“Okay. Come and get me if you need anything. Drink some water while you’re at it,” Sierra says, then goes back to her messy dancing. 

Jordan has no intention of drinking water, because that makes you less drunk, duh. Her knee is killing her, though, so pushes her way through the crowd until she makes it to the kitchen. Once there she opens the door of the refrigerator and is distracted by how nice the cool air feels on her sweaty skin. She only now realizes how hot it is in the house. She can feel that she’s flushed. 

While she’s standing in the dim light of the fridge door and swaying, she notices that the sliding door to the backyard is open. It’s October, so that means that cool air must be coming from there, too. In fact, the entire outside world must be pretty chilly. That’s promising, so Jordan stumbles over to the door and is about to step outside when she hears voices.

Huh. One sharp, French-Canadian voice, in particular. Jordan stops and presses herself against the wall next to the door, where whoever is outside can’t hear her. 

“She might not even be worth all the work. I don’t care if Lewis loves her. Skill-wise, she’s not at the level I want our team to be at, and I know some of the girls are scared of practicing with her.”

Well, well, well. Jordan is pretty sure she knows who she’s talking about.

It’s Anisa’s voice that responds. “She’s not that bad. She’s getting more receptive to coaching, at least. 

“Sure-- when it’s not me giving her advice.”

“Fine. She doesn’t like you-- I’ll give you that. But sometimes you have to put up with people you don’t get along with. And in this case, you’re older and more mature, so you kind of have to take the higher ground.”

“I don’t want to be mature. I want her to stop interrupting me when I’m talking. She’s a monster.”

“Celeste. You’re making a very big deal out of something that’s not much more than a little teasing. I know she bothers you, but she’s just a freshman with an attitude issue. She’ll grow out of it.”

And yeah, that hurts. Jordan expects Celeste to have bad things to say about her-- in fact, she invites that kind of complaining. Good. That means Jordan is doing a good job messing with her. Ani, on the other hand, is her rookie mama. She’s always nice, but apparently even she thinks Jordan has an issue. 

Jordan hates that word-- issue. She hates being the problem child. She can feel that she’s even more flushed than before, but this time because she’s angry. Her mind is telling her that everything she’s been doing is wrong, wrong wrong-- that this team isn’t a fresh start at all, because underneath everything she’s just an instigator, and that’s all she’ll ever be.

“I wish she wasn’t on the team,” Celeste says, and that’s the last straw. 

Jordan takes the handle of the sliding door. She doesn’t want any damn fresh air anymore. She can feel the muscles of her shoulders clenching as she prepares, then slams the door shut. The entire wall shakes with the force of it and she hears a shout from outside, from one of them, surprised by the noise. 

Fuck them. Fuck all of this. She turns on her heels and returns to the living room, pushing her way through all these damn people who are in the way, and stops at the first teammate she gets to. 

It’s Sierra. Jordan grabs her shoulder and yanks her away from the girl she’s dancing with.

“What the fuck, Jordan?” Sierra says, spilling her drink on the hardwood. Jordan doesn’t care, just marches her out into the entryway of the house, where less people are clustered and it’s quieter.

“Is she the only one who talks about me, or is it everybody?”

Sierra sputters. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Celeste! I don’t care if she wants me off the team. Whatever. I don’t care. But if you’re all talking about me behind my back, then fucking stop it. I want to know. You can talk shit to my face.”

“What? Jordan, take a deep breath. Sit down or something. We’re not talking about you.”

“Fuck off. I just heard Celeste and Ani talking. They hate me.”

“I doubt that, but even if they did, we’re not a fucking hive mind.” Sierra gently pushes Jordan to sit on bottom step of the staircase, then sits next to her. “They don’t speak for all of us.”

“Come on. I know how teams work. If someone is thinking it, then everyone is.”

Sierra just shakes her head. Before she can say anything, Johanna appears in the doorway from the living room. 

“Oh, this is where you went. Everything okay?”

“Uh, Jordan’s feeling like everyone is talking behind her back.”

“No more than anyone else on the team,” Johanna says, and Jordan lets out a loud, exasperated sigh.

“Not very helpful, JoJo,” Sierra says, although she waves her hand to invite her to sit with them, and she does. Sierra then turns back to Jordan. “Celeste has strong feelings about how she wants the team to run. And sure, she’s worried about safety and making sure everyone on the team gets along. She has her doubts about you, but I’m pretty confident that they’re misguided. You can prove her wrong.”

Jordan sighs again, louder. “She’s a bitch. Who made her queen?” 

“Uh, all of us,” Sierra says. “When we elected her captain.”

“I sure as hell wouldn't have picked her,” says Jordan.

“Dude!” Johanna scoots her way to sit on the same step, between Jordan and Sierra. It’s a very tight squeeze. “How could you say that? I wouldn't trust anyone else with this responsibility. She’s best at playing, and amazing in a crisis. Like, last year, I got malarchuked, and she totally saved my life.”

“You did not get malarchuked!” They all look up. Courtney is standing in the doorway this time and she leans against the railing. Sierra nods in agreement.

“Yeah, but if I did, you could bet that Celeste would be like that doctor and hold the ends of my veins shut so I didn't lose all my blood.”

“That's disgusting,” Courtney says. 

Sierra, on the other hand, is smiling wide at the thought. “She totally would, though! See, you haven’t really seen her in action that much, but she loves this team more than anything, Jordan. It’s like, her rock. Sure, she’s not nice about it always, but she’s just looking out for the team.”

Jordan crosses her arms-- she’s still seething, no matter what Sierra says. “She’s too fucking bossy. If Coach Lewis thinks I should play, then I play. I don’t want her being a bitch and fucking talking behind my back to make everyone hate me.”

Courtney and Sierra share a look. Jordan doesn’t like this at all. They communicate something through their eyes and she has no clue what it is. Sierra gives a shrug and Courtney squats down to be at their level, which makes Jordan feels like she’s being talked to like a little kid. 

“Listen, I think you're dealing with some internalized sexism, and while I respect that that’s something you can’t really control feeling, I think you need to put more effort into working past that,” Courtney says.

Bullshit. “I’m not being sexist. For one, I’m a fucking girl--” 

“Woman,” Sierra interrupts. 

“Fine, I’m a grown-ass woman, and I respect her and everything. It's not about that. She’s just a bitch.”

“See, the thing is, you don’t really respect her. At all. And like, she hasn’t been the nicest to you, but she’s kind of bad at communication and sometimes come across harsher than she means to, and you’ve barely given her a chance,” says Courtney. 

Sierra nods in agreement, then adds, “Would you be putting up this much of a fight if she was Jack Zimmermann?”

Huh. Well. Jordan is caught off guard for a moment. “But Jack Zimmermann is…” she trails off, not sure how to phrase what she wants to say without digging herself into a deeper hole and proving them all right.

Johanna puts her hand on Jordan’s shoulder. “Hey, baby butch? Don’t get me wrong, but do you know who the hell Celeste is?”

Jordan furrows her brow. “Uh, yeah. She’s our captain. She’s a bitch. She wears way too much Nike.”

All three of them share a look this time. 

“Ohhhh,” Sierra says.

“Ahhhhhhhhh,” Courtney echoes. 

Jordan feels like an idiot. Once again, they all know something she doesn’t. “What?”

“Jordan, what do you know about women’s hockey?” Courtney says.

Oh. Okay. Jordan has to admit that she knows woefully little. In her defense-- well. There’s not much in her defense here. Women’s hockey isn’t something they show on TV and she hasn’t made an effort to get into it. That’s the truth of it. 

“Uh, CWHL?” Not that she could name any team in the league, but she knows it exists, at least. “I watch the women’s games in the Olympics, too. And I had Hilary Knight’s ESPN Body Issue photos up on my wall in high school. 

Sierra grins at the last part. “Okay, good. That’s a start. But I’m pretty sure every girl who plays hockey has had a crush on Hilary Knight at some point or another, so we can do better.”

“Eh, beg to differ. I’ve always been more of an Amanda Kessel girl,” Courtney interrupts. 

“Fine, whether or not you crushed on Knight or Kessel is a huge indicator of your personality and type. But I digress. So you watched the 2010 Vancouver Games, then?” 

“Yeah. Canada won both women’s and men’s. It sucked.”

Johanna laughs. “Yeah, at least you Americans medaled.” 

“Unimportant, guys,” says Sierra. “Anyway. You know Celeste is twenty-one, right?”

Alright, now they’ve lost her. “What?” Jordan says. “So she can drink? I’m not following.”

“She’s twenty-one and only a junior in college,” Courtney says, voice slow, walking Jordan through it. “Because when she was eighteen she was playing in the Vancouver Olympics.”

Oh.

Oh.  
“Celeste is a fucking Olympian?” Jordan says, just to clarify, because-- really? How did she not know that she’s playing on a team with a real, actual Olympian? Olympians are fucking gods to Jordan Kelly. They’re the peak of athleticism. They’re everything she ever wants to be. 

“Right. I’m not going to go through the whole thing, but she was the baby of the Canadian women’s national team that year. And their top scorer during their exhibition games. So, like, yeah, sure, she can be a bitch. But maybe you calm down with your fucking attitude for just a little bit and consider that sure, maybe she’s not an NHL hopeful, but she’s our captain and the best damn player you’ll ever have the pleasure of working with, so maybe you could listen to her sometimes,” Courtney says, voice turning to ice at the end. 

It feels harsh. It is harsh. Jordan, however, deserves it. She hangs her head. “Oops.”

“Oops is right,” says Johanna. “Need to start paying attention to women’s hockey, baby butch.”

“Probably,” says Jordan. “Fine. Okay. Maybe she has, like, stuff I can learn from. But that doesn’t matter if she wants me off the team.”

“God, Jordan. She was mean, yes. You’ve been mean right back. But one of you has to offer a fucking olive branch at some point and get over it.”

Jordan looks up at Courtney. She’s sweaty from the heat of the house, but her expression isn’t necessarily unkind. She turns and sees Johanna and Sierra look the same. For the first time, somehow, she sees how committed they all are to Celeste-- not just as a friend, but as the one who holds the team together. 

“Alright, you think about all that,” Sierra says, standing. “We’re gonna dance.”

“Drink some water,” Courtney says, and they all leave her alone on the steps. 

Jordan sits on the steps and mulls over all of this. Okay. She knows a hell of a lot more about Zimmermann than Celeste, and Zimmermann hasn’t even ever played on his national team. And sure, maybe she has more reasons than most people to know about Jack Zimmermann, but that’s just one example. There are hundreds more men’s players she’s been idolizing since she could first hold a hockey stick, and maybe five or six women’s players who she could name.

That’s kind of sad, she admits. And sure, it’s not entirely her fault that she’s never been exposed to women’s hockey, but she supposes she probably ought to fix that, now that she’s playing on a women’s team. 

Jordan is still mulling over this an hour later, but this time, she’s nursing yet another beer while she watches Lauren and Tyler dominate at pong. Sure, she felt bad about herself and got even more drunk. So what. She’s a college student-- it happens. Fact of the matter is that Celeste finally reappears from wherever she’s been hiding for the duration of the party and an alcohol-addled Jordan remembers at that moment she can speak French. She decides to test her skills on Celeste immediately.

“Bonjour, mon capitaine! Où avez-vous été toute la nuit?” she says. Hello, my captain! Where have you been all night?

Celeste seems genuinely shocked for a moment. She looks at Jordan, mouth open in surprise. Then she raises one eyebrow and-- wow, that does something to Jordan. That’s really cool. That’s-- she doesn’t even know how to describe that. “Votre accent n'est pas si grave,” she says. Your accent isn’t that bad. 

And so now this is a thing, them speaking French. Celeste engages Jordan in conversation for a few minutes, inquiring politely about her high school French classes, before realizing that, one, Jordan’s speaking ability doesn't extend much past simple conversation, and two, she's really too drunk to even hold a coherent conversation in English at this point, anyway, let alone a second language that she’s not fluent in.

The conversation degrades to Jordan teasing Celeste about how she says certain English words, Celeste teasing her about her drunken slurring, and both of them just looking to verbally one up the other.

After about ten minutes of this, Celeste is just getting irritated. She’s overwhelmed, really-- by the too-loud music and the too-dark room and the too-close touching. Dealing with Jordan on top of all of that is too much. Talking to anyone takes so much energy, but Jordan is more draining than anyone else she’s ever known. Celeste stops responding to Jordan when Jordan starts to call her ridiculous French pet names. 

Jordan finally says, “Aw, tu me détestes vraiment trop pour me parler?” You really hate me too much to talk to me? 

And Celeste, finally at her wit’s end, just says “Tais-toi” and turns on her heels to storm upstairs. Shut up.

Well, that’s that. Jordan cackles and calls out after her, “Sorry, forgot we’re not allowed to have fun in La Maison du Hockey!”

Celeste stops on the stairs for just a moment but doesn't turn back. Jordan doesn’t follow her because upstairs is a realm she doesn’t dare enter. After a minute Celeste does end up going all the way up to her room, and Jordan hears her door slam shut a moment later.

There. She kept up the regular level of banter with Celeste and didn’t act different at all. Olympian or not, she’s still just a girl whose nerves Jordan can easily get on, and that’s just plain old fun. 

Without anyone else to bother, Jordan is bored, so she wanders around the dying party for a bit. All of the rookies are drunk out of their minds at this point and most of the non team members have left the house. Jordan isn’t quite drunk enough to black out, but time is definitely hazy. One minute she’s dancing, then the house is empty and she’s sitting on the couch watching TV with Lauren. Then she’s helping carry another rookie to sit in the kitchen. Then Celeste is back downstairs, but Sierra is bringing Jordan to the couch and trying to get her to lay down. It’s all very confusing. Jordan doesn’t feel good anymore-- she just wants to get some air.

“I’m getting some air,” she says, and slips out of the room while the upperclassmen are distracted. 

She leaves through the one door of the living room she’s never been through and discovers that it leads through the garage. Amazing. 

Even more amazing is the car parked inside. It’s firetruck red, shiny, and a masterpiece of engineering. Jordan opens the door back to the house again and shouts, maybe louder than necessary, “Hey, who here has a fucking Mercedes?”

A moment later, another shout comes back. Accent. It’s Celeste. Huh. Feels like Jordan was just talking to her. “Oh my god, someone please get Jordan away from my car!” 

Jordan sits back down on the floor while the others left in the house rush over to drag her back in. Wow. This sure has been a party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from Closer by Tegan and Sara.
> 
> I hope I did an okay job of expressing Jordan's locker room issues in this chapter. Obviously I'm writing from the experience of me, just one lesbian, and everyone has different experiences. Jordan is dealing with a lot of internalized stuff alongside all of your normal societal pressure, and the whole locker room thing is something I know a lot of wlw individuals struggle with. Let me know what you think about that! At this point in Jordan's life she's realized that she exclusively likes girls and that's half the battle, but there will be several other incidences like the locker room thing in this story. Not really main plot points, but just day-to-day stuff. Just a heads up!
> 
> Next up: family weekend, and the surprises keep on coming.
> 
> Comments mean the world to me! Tell me what you think there and check me out on tumblr, where I'm @hockeydyke.


	4. a 90s baby in my 80s mercedes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet the parents and fix a car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, the disclaimer: omgcp is the creation of Ngozi Ukazu.

Samwell Women’s Hockey practices daily on weekdays, first thing in the morning, early-- earlier than the men’s team, because of course the university gave the men’s team a more reasonable time. Besides that there are mandatory fitness sessions at the campus gym in the evening on Tuesdays and Thursdays as well as informal workouts every so often. 

Celeste attends all of these and reserves ice time for herself on Sundays and occasional evenings as well. She’ll drag along teammates to work on their weak spots, or if she can’t find anyone she’ll just run drills by herself until she’s breathing hard, muscles screaming from the exertion. 

She’s committed. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s exhausting. 

Hockey is her everything, though, so she persists. This semester, however, her routine is disturbed slightly by the addition of another regular who hits the gym almost as much as she does: Jordan. And Celeste-- well, Celeste has to admit that she is impressed by that. It’s the one area where Jordan shows the sort of discipline that Celeste wants the whole team to demonstrate. 

In nearly every other aspect of college life, though, Jordan is woefully undisciplined. It irks Celeste to no end. Jordan can spend hours hitting the weights or practicing the speed drills Celeste gave her, but she can’t seem to find it in herself to actually do her readings for class or attend lectures or even day-to-day responsibilities like scheduling herself a haircut.

It’s this last thing that particularly bothers Celeste one Saturday a few weeks after their home opener, the beginning of family weekend, when she walks into the kitchen of the house-- which the girls are unfortunately now calling La Maison-- to find Jordan with her forehead on the table, beaten-up laptop open in front of her even though she’s clearly not working. 

“Salut,” says Celeste, because she’s in a good mood. 

Jordan is evidently in less high spirits, because instead of responding with some teasing French like she normally would, she just groans. 

Celeste hums in response as she walks to the fridge, socked feet almost silent on the scuffed hardwood. “Which class?” 

Jordan groans again, then raises her head. Her bangs are long enough that they flop down over her eyes but she makes no movement to brush them out of the way. “Does it even matter? They’re all too fucking hard.”

“It’s normal to be overwhelmed as a freshman. Usually it helps to go to class, though,” Celeste says, examining a container of leftover Chinese takeout with Courtney’s name marked on the side. 

“Jesus, I swear to god that I’m trying. I’ve only missed, like, three lectures.”

“I missed one in my first two years at Samwell,” Celeste says, because it’s true. 

“Yeah, whatever. Not all of us are fucking smart, okay?” Jordan raises her hands over her laptop, looking for a moment like she’s going to slam it shut with all her strength before she thinks better of it and puts her hands down again. Her hair is still over her eyes.

Celeste opens the container, sniffs at it, then puts it back in the fridge. “I didn’t say you’re not smart.”

“Oh, please. It was implied. I can tell when someone is talking down at me, Miss 4-Point-Oh.”

“I wasn’t. I’m just saying that you’re not going to be able to keep up with difficult classes if you aren’t meeting even the basic requirements for success. Show up. Do the readings. That’s about all you need.”

“Yeah, well. Failed step one, failed step two, all that.”

“Set alarms to remind you twenty minutes before each class starts,” Celeste says, finally finding an un-expired yogurt and sitting down across from Jordan at the table with it. 

Before Celeste has even finished speaking, Jordan has already started to say, “I’ve already thought of--” 

She cuts off and thinks for a moment, biting her lip. Celeste’s eyes dart between the hair and her lips. Both distracting. “Oh. Yeah, I guess I could do that,” Jordan says. 

“And then if the material still isn’t making sense, you go to office hours. But first try the readings.”

“Ha,” Jordan says. “Easier than it sounds. Fuck academia. These are so much denser than they need to be.”

Celeste carefully peels the top off the yogurt and flicks it onto the table. “What class?” 

“Uh, European History. It’s a gen ed.”

Celeste makes a face. She’s a STEM girl, through and through. “Sounds boring.”

“Some parts of it, yeah. But the lectures are interesting sometimes? I just can’t read this textbook for shit. Like, even when I do manage a paragraph, once I stop to take notes, I lose all my concentration again.”

“Oh.” Celeste eats a few spoonfuls, then looks back up at Jordan. She’s sprawled back in her chair, legs wide, back slouched, head tipped forward enough that her bangs hit her nose. “Would it help if you were hearing the readings?” 

“Uh, probably? But I don’t think they make these in audiobook form.”

Hmm. Well. Jordan failing to meet her responsibilities is distracting Celeste to no end, so it’s in her benefit to do something about this.

“I’ll read it to you,” Celeste says, “if you do two things.”

“Wait-- really?” Jordan sits up straight. “Yeah, that’d be great. What do you need me to do?”

“Help me fix my car, mainly. I know what I need to do, but I need someone to help me with some lifting.”

“Oh, hell yeah. I’m good at that kind of shit.”

“I figured.”

“What’s the other thing?”

Celeste stands, turns away to drop her emptied yogurt cup in the garbage can. She turns back around and fixes Jordan with a stern look. “Get a damn haircut.”

\\_ . _/

Two hours and one finished chapter later find Celeste perched on the hood of the Mercedes, giving Jordan instructions while she works on the undercarriage. It’s a decent system-- Celeste gives instructions, Jordan mostly follows them, and they don’t talk about anything else. 

Really, Celeste could be doing this part on her own. In fact, she really enjoys working on her car. It’s old and kind of beat up and she really could afford a newer and more relevant model, but she likes the challenge that the Mercedes gives her. Today she’s making Jordan do the dirty work, though, because she doesn’t want to have to shower before parents start showing up. 

Celeste wonders for a brief second if she should ask Jordan if she has anyone coming for family weekend, but she thinks better of it. No need to break their new longest no-argument-streak. 

Of course, it’s just Celeste’s luck that their peace is broken not even a minute later when the door to the garage from the living room opens, just as she’s leaning down to hand Jordan another wrench. 

Celeste doesn’t even look up-- she just automatically says, “Don’t worry, we’re not fighting.”

A deep, booming voice answers, “I hope that my girl isn’t fighting.”

Celeste’s head jerks up and she lets out an embarrassingly childish squeal as she hops off the hood of the car, narrowly avoiding landing on Jordan’s legs, and jumps up to give the newcomer a hug. “Hi, Papa,” she says, and then switches to Quebecois as she launches into a barrage of questions about his flight from Montreal.

He laughs, keeps her in his arms for a minute, and obliges her with a description of the very inquisitive toddler who sat in the row behind him. Celeste is just about to ask him if he’s already checked into his hotel room when there’s a loud clang from behind them. She spins around, a shout about to leave her lips, mainly concerned for her car, and sees that Jordan has wiggled out from under it and stood.

She’s also apparently dropped the wrench onto the concrete floor, hence the noise. She’s staring at them, eyes wide, drenched with sweat and covered in dirt smears. 

“Holy fucking shit,” Jordan says. “I mean-- sorry, sir.”

Celeste’s dad smiles at her, shaking his head a bit. He’s used to this. “You’re fine.”

Celeste steps between them. “Jordan, this is my dad, Cha--” 

“Charles Lefebvre, yeah, I know.” Jordan steps forward and offers her hand to shake. “Sir, you’re such a legend. I, uh, didn’t realize, um.” 

Charles shakes her hand, having no qualms about how greasy it is. “Didn’t realize that Celeste’s dad is an NHL vet? No worries, you’re not the only one. She doesn’t tell anyone. Sometimes it makes me think that she’s not proud of her old man,” he says, giving a big, exaggerated frown. 

Celeste rolls her eyes. “I’m proud of you. I just don’t think it’s something I need to tell people.”

“What do you mean? That’s so cool. It’s such a pleasure to meet you, sir. I had a poster of you on my wall when I was a kid. God, this is so wild. You were absolutely the best thing to ever happen to the Sabres.”

“Oh, yeah?” Charles says, amused. “I’m pretty sure I was traded back to the Habs before you were born, young lady.”

Jordan blushes. It occurs to Celeste that she’s never seen Jordan this red-faced. “Well, yeah. But my family-- we’re from near there, they’re big Sabres fans, they talked about you a lot when I was first getting into hockey. I watched your games whenever I could. You basically, like, taught me how to fight?”

“Well. I guess I did get into a good fight or two,” Charles says, winking. 

Celeste sighs. Her dad can be a menace sometimes. All the time, really. 

“Yeah! Until you broke your--” Jordan breaks off suddenly, and blushes some more. She makes an already awkward situation worse by letting her eyes drop down to Charles’ left leg. 

“Until I broke my leg and effectively ended my career early? You don’t have to tiptoe around saying it. It was well over a decade ago now. I’ve come to terms with it.”

Celeste wonders if Jordan can tell that that’s not quite true, or if she just knows her dad well enough to hear the flatness in his tone. She steps in before Jordan can manage to say anything else uncomfortable. “Jordan, we’re all set with the car for now. You can go do whatever to get ready for the game. 5pm sharp in the dressing room, though, okay? If you’re late you’re losing ice time.”

“I’m never late to games,” Jordan says, hurt obvious in her voice. 

“Good. Don’t start. See you later,” Celeste says, then grabs her dad’s arm and pulls him back into the house before Jordan can get another word in.

She doesn’t stop until they’ve made it back out the front door. Celeste lets go of Charles’ arm and starts walking in the direction of main campus, knowing that he’ll follow. Once they’re out of view of the house she finally takes a deep breath and slows her pace significantly so he can catch up.

Back in the day, Charles Lefebvre was a hulking, abrasive winger, the kind of guy you wanted desperately to be on your team if only just so you wouldn’t have to play against him. He never led the league in points or stood out as the superstar of any of the teams he played for, but he was a respectable player and had a big personality and tendency to drop gloves that the media loved. 

Now, he’s struggling to keep up with Celeste. She slows even more, wanting more than anything to avoid him having to ask her to take it easy. Countless surgeries, metal plates and rods, and years of physical therapy mean that he can usually walk without a cane. The fact that he lost his career and his wife on the way to being able to do that means that he still carries shame with him, heavy on his shoulders. 

When he finally makes it to the point where he’s at Celeste’s side and walking stride for stride with her, he says, “So, that was the rookie you’ve been complaining to me about?”

Celeste just nods.

“I like her.”

“Of course you do,” Celeste says. “Let’s just go to Annie’s. It’s close and we don’t have that much time.”

Charles nods. “Can’t mess up your routine. Let’s go, then.”

\\_ . _/ 

They win the game, 2-1 in overtime. Celeste gets the winning goal and some part of her that feels very young looks over her shoulder to make sure her father is watching in the stands. He is, of course. They make eye contact briefly before Celeste is buried in the dogpile of hugging from teammates who rushed toward her as soon as they scored. 

After some obligatory hugging Celeste makes her way over to Johanna to bump helmets and congratulate her on a good game. When she turns back to face center ice she sees that the rest of her teammates have already gone back to the bench to greet Jordan with fist bumps and hugs, because apparently they’re celebrating the fact that she managed to land herself in the sin bin once in the first period for a rough check and then getting herself ejected from the game at the end of the second for throwing a punch at the same girl.

Needless to say, Celeste is pissed. Union scored on them in during the power play that resulted from that first period minor and Jordan is to blame. When she skates back to the bench she ignores Jordan’s arm, held up for a fist bump, and walks straight back to the locker room. 

Jordan isn’t a bad player, but she’s constantly getting distracted by the smallest of things-- particularly nasty chirp, a trip that isn’t penalized, even someone looking at her the wrong way-- and she responds in kind. Checking, hooking, fighting, general intimidation, etc.-- all are fair game to Jordan.

Sometimes you have to let things go and concentrate on the game. Celeste knows this well. The game doesn’t have to be that physical. She doesn’t like how Jordan’s fighting loses them valuable scoring opportunities and leaves them shorthanded more often than not. She doesn’t like how it reflects badly on the whole team, because she doesn’t want SWH to get a bad reputation. 

But god, what Celeste is most angry about? The fact that violence on their end just invites reciprocation from their rivals.

Celeste doesn’t want to be targeted. 

So, yeah, she’s seething when she skates off the ice, but undressing helps. It’s routine: helmet off and in the cubby, jersey off and folded, armor off and set on the bench. Everything is in its place. When she’s gearing up for a game she ignores anyone who tries to talk to her, but afterward she’s no longer in the same mental zone, so she gladly accepts a few pats on her back and compliments on her game. 

The team changes faster than normal, all excited to go out and see family members. Celeste finishes and finds herself in the middle of a crowd of her girls as they pour out into the hallway. Her dad is leaning against a wall, wearing a Samwell hoodie and hat. 

“Good game, mon ange. I see you’ve been working on that backhand. How’s your head?” 

“My head?” 

“Ah, don’t think I didn’t see that collision between you and 34.”

Oh. True. Celeste and one of Union’s defensewomen had run into each other late in the first period. It’d been neither of their faults, just an accident that brought Celeste’s head into the girl’s shoulder. She’d skated it off as soon as she was steady on her feet again. No big deal-- in fact, she had totally forgotten about it until now. “My head’s fine. That was nothing.”

“Not nothing. Head injuries are serious business.”

“It wasn’t an injury. It was nothing.”

Charles sighs and raises his arms in surrender. “Fine, fine. I just worry about you. You’re so small out there. Makes a father anxious.”

“Dad.” Celeste takes a deep breath, ready to express yet again that she’s sick of him treating her like she’s going to break, but he’s distracted before she can even start.

“Jordan!” he exclaims, stepping over to pat her shoulder. “Nice game.”

Jordan grins at him, eyes bright. “Thanks, Mr. Lefebvre. It was a fun one.”

Fun, sure. You spent nearly half of it on the bench, Celeste thinks, but her dad and Jordan clearly do not pick up on the distaste in her expression, since they launch into a discussion about how the Union girl Jordan punched was getting away with small infractions all over the place. They only stop their excited babbling when Jordan’s eyes light up as she sees someone over Charles’ shoulder, says a quick “see ya,” and sprints past them.

Celeste and Charles both turn to see her embrace a tall man, light hair a mix of blonde and gray. If it wasn’t already clear from the hugging, Celeste would certainly know from his face that he’s Jordan’s dad. Same strong nose and chin and captivating eyes. 

“Huh. That explains where she gets the height from, then,” Charles says.

“I’d say so,” Celeste says as two young women take their turns hugging Jordan. They look like Jordan might if she cared about her appearance-- both very pretty.

“Well, I’d like to meet them,” says Charles.

“Dad.”

“I’m doing it,” he says, starting off toward them, mouth turning upward in a wide grin when Mr. Kelly sees who he is. 

“Holy shit,” says Mr. Kelly, looking almost exactly like his daughter had earlier. 

“I know, right?” says Jordan. 

Celeste tunes out the excited praise that the Kelly family showers her father with. She’s used to all of it. She only starts paying attention again when she’s introduced properly to Tom, Emily, and Taylor Kelly. She politely shakes hands with all of them, then steps back again. It’s her dad they care about.

When she manages to concentrate on the conversation again, Tom is saying, “And then there’s also my wife, Heather, and my oldest daughter Morgan, but they’re both tied up with work right now, so they couldn’t make it,” Tom is saying, his arm slung around Jordan’s shoulder.

While Charles asks about what sort of work they do, Celeste eyes Jordan. “So you’re the youngest of-- four?”

“Yup.” Jordan shrugs. “I think my dad was just gonna keep trying until he got a son but my mom set the limit at four, so he has to make do with me.”

“Youngest child. I can tell,” Celeste says. 

Jordan laughs. “Harsh. How about you? Just your dad?” 

“Yes. Only child,” Celeste says, not even bothering to start on explaining the mess of backstory that is her mom. 

“Yeah. I can tell,” Jordan echoes.

Celeste does have to laugh at that, but the moment she stops she remembers why she’s not happy with Jordan. Charming as she may be, she’s doing more damage than good on the ice right now. “Jokes aside, you need to think about your behavior more. It’s reflecting very poorly on the team.”

“Whoa. Talk about a subject change,” Jordan says, almost flinching. “The girl deserved to get roughed up a bit.”

“That’s not how we play hockey at Samwell,” Celeste says. It’s true, after all-- last year the team had the lowest penalty minutes of any NCAA ice hockey team. “Maybe it works when you’re playing for a tiny high school team and you’re just in it to fight, but you’re playing serious hockey now. Start acting like it.” 

Celeste turns and heads off down the hallway, very much ready to go. Charles hurries saying a goodbye to the Kellys and walks quickly to follow, one hand clapped to his hip, which Celeste knows has been twinging again lately. She slows once they’re out of earshot of the rest of the team.

“Not very polite,” Charles says. “You left in the middle of a conversation.”

“I can’t stand her. She knows the rules. She just has absolutely no respect for them. You have to understand why I don’t like that.”

“I understand that it’s not what you’re used to, mon ange. But I like that spirit. Hockey isn’t all mechanics, you know.”

Celeste grits her teeth and tries to resist the desire to stomp like a child as they exit Faber. “I know it’s not.”

“Sometimes it seems like you don’t. I don’t want to say that yes, it’s completely fine that she bends the rules, but I have to admit that it adds something to the game. It adds something to your game.”

“My game is fine,” Celeste hisses.

“There’s always room for improvement. Team chemistry is unpredictable, so sometimes adding an even more unpredictable player balances things out.”

Celeste is very done with this conversation. She just wants to go home and take her car out somewhere where she can roll the windows down and drive fast until she’s relaxed again. “Please don’t get preachy. Eventually she’ll rack up enough game ejections that she’ll learn her lesson. I just hope she doesn’t drag down the entire team while she does it.”

“Ah. See, I have a feeling she won’t drag anyone down. Maybe she’ll do just the opposite.”

Celeste lets out a groan. Sure. Like that's ever going to happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 80s Mercedes by Maren Morris (who I saw live recently!!!). 
> 
> This chapter was a little shorter because I moved back to DC this week and have had a really awful time with scheduling and trainings and paperwork and other related bs... basically, my fall semester classes are mega fucked right now, but I'm hoping that'll be resolved once an advisor actually answers my emails. Once I'm a bit less stressed about that I'll have a lot more writing time!!
> 
> Up next: /someone/ gets the flu and someone else helps her out a bit.
> 
> As always, I'm @hockeydyke on tumblr!


	5. this was no path to glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which dating is discussed, freshman plague is proved real, and Youtube helps Jordan make some discoveries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Totally unbeta'd. Sorry, guys.
> 
> As usual, disclaimer: omgcp belongs to Ngozi.

Fall semester passes in a blur. They win some games, lose some. Jordan makes it through midterms with decent enough grades that her advisor isn’t worried, so she continues to set alarms to remind her to go to class and begs her teammates to read texts to her when they’re too dense and she manages to stay afloat.

It’s a good system. It doesn’t, however, work for her college math requirement, so she finds herself putting all of her concentration on homework for that class one day while she sits with her back against a bare tree on Lake Quad, looking out over at the pond. It’s a mild day for late November: there’s no snow on the ground, surprisingly, and the air is a crisp 50°F, meaning that Jordan is comfortable in a sweater, her denim jacket, and jeans. Her hands are a little cold, but she prefers that to the sticky heat of her dorm room, where her Floridian roommate is constantly cranking the heater. The dim warmth of the sun is fine for Jordan-- she’s a northerner, through and through. Her blood runs warm.

It’s early afternoon and most students are either in class tucked away to study in the warm library or the dorms. Jordan is half working, half watching geese near the pond, when two shadows fall on either side of her, long in the low winter sun.

“Hi, baby butch,” says the one on her left.

“We were just talking about you,” says the right.

Without looking, Jordan knows that they are Johanna and Sierra, respectively. She clears her calculator. “Shouldn’t you guys be in class?”

“I don’t have class for another hour,” says Johanna, sitting down next to Jordan.

Sierra leans down to pick up Jordan’s textbook and examine what she’s working on. “Ew, math. My lecture let out early. We’re going over to Tyler’s room ‘cause he promised he’d make us lunch.”

“He’s a vegetarian,” Johanna adds. “Vegetarians are always good cooks.”

Jordan can’t say she has enough experience interacting with vegetarians to know if that’s true or not, so she just nods. “Cool. Let me know how it is.”

“Nah, you come with us. You’re invited,” says Sierra, grabbing Jordan’s upper arm to tug her to her feet. Jordan resists by pulling Sierra to the ground with one sharp tug. They wrestle around for a moment until Jordan gets both of Sierra’s shoulders on the ground and sits on her so she can’t get up.

“Uncle, uncle!” Sierra calls out. “Johansson, help me out here!”

Johanna is too busy Snapchatting them to provide any assistance, so Jordan releases Sierra after a few seconds. “I should probably finish the last few problems, but free food, so…” That, and there’s no way Jordan’s going to be able to concentrate on her homework after the adrenaline rush of wrestling.

“Cool, let’s go. We were supposed to be there, like, five minutes ago.” Sierra, still holding Jordan’s math textbook, starts to run in the direction.

Jordan springs up and shoves her laptop and notebook into her backpack, barely remembering to zip it off before she sprints off after Sierra. No one explicitly said that this is a race, but Jordan is going to make it one. She glances back once to see Johanna only now realizing what’s going on and starting to jog to catch up. Jordan laughs through heavy breaths that steam out in front of her, glad to have something a lot better than math to do.

\\_._/

One run and about thirty minutes later finds Jordan, Sierra, Johanna, Tyler, Lauren, and Courtney all sat around the table in Tyler’s floor lounge, digging into a hearty 2pm lunch of vegetarian tacos. Jordan in general is skeptical of foods that should have meat that don’t have meat, but she has to admit that these taste pretty good.

“This is good,” says Jordan.

Sierra stands up and points her fork at Jordan. What? Did she say something wrong?

“I just remembered,” starts Sierra, “that we need to talk to you about Winter Screw.”

Oh. Thank god it’s just that. Jordan continues eating her taco, glad to know that she hasn’t done anything wrong.

“Right! We are finding you a date,” says Johanna.

Sierra sits down again. No one else appears to be alarmed by her disruption, and they continue to eat. Jordan isn’t sure if this says something about the regularity of Sierra’s dramatacisms, or rather just indicates how good Tyler’s cooking is.

“We need somewhere to start, though,” says Sierra.

  
“Oh. I don’t know,” Jordan says through a full mouth. She’s hadn’t realized that Winter Screw was something she’d actually have to go to. She’s a college freshman, though, so she doesn’t mind an excuse to go to parties and get a little schwasty, which is what Screw sounds like.

“Well, you’re exclusively into girls, right?” Sierra starts.

Yes, right. It’s still kind of a shock to Jordan that her team knows that.

In fact, it’s a shock that they talk about it so casually. When Jordan blurted out “I like girls” to her dad while they were in the car on the way to Walmart in the dead of winter her senior year of high school, he told her mother and then never brought up the subject again. It’s the ultimate elephant in the room for the Kelly family: everyone knows, but nobody dares bring it up.

With SWH, on the other hand, Jordan doesn’t go a day without hearing Courtney bragging about some new chick she’s wheeling, or hearing Sierra lament over the fact that no one she matches with on Tinder, guy, girl, or other, is her type. They talk as freely about girls as Jordan’s old teammates talked about their girlfriends.

Jordan likes that. She wishes she could talk like that, but, well.

She can probably count on one hand how many times she’s actually told people that she’s a lesbian. Usually they just assume or do their best to ignore it, like her family, so she rarely feels hard-pressed to say it outright. It’s hard enough being the butch girl on the boy’s hockey team at a small-town high school, let alone being outspoken about liking girls on top of that. It’s probably the one area in Jordan’s life where she chooses her battles. She’s just not used to talking about it yet. She just nods in response to Sierra after several moments too long of silence.

Sierra takes her hesitation is stride. “Cool. We’ll find find you a cute gal pal for Screw, then.”

“Uh,” Courtney says, standing to go rinse off her plate. “Remember the last time you set up someone?”

“Alex and Sarah? They ended up dating!”

“Yeah, for two weeks! And that ended with a broken window and a half-shaved cat!”

Sierra cackles. “Yeah, that was pretty funny.”

“Not for them! If you want to avoid property damage you have to think about compatibility and shit.” Courtney rips off a few paper towels to dry the plate, then nods at Jordan. “What’s your type, baby butch?”

Jordan thinks for a minute. Swallows. Takes a sip of her water, sets the glass down.

“I don’t know,” she says, honestly.

“Yeah, I’ll need a little bit more to narrow it down,” says Courtney. “There are a lot of eligible girls at Samwell.”

Yes, that’s true. Jordan catches herself looking at them every day, walking to class, browsing the shelves at the library, working out in the gym-- cute girls are everywhere. It’s kind of overwhelming.

“Easy to solve. Just describe girls you have dated,” says Johanna.

Well, that’s easy enough. “I don’t date,” says Jordan.

“At all?” asks Tyler, collecting the paper plates they’ve been using as serving platters, now empty, and bringing them to the organic waste bin, which is a very Samwell thing.

Jordan shrugs. She’s not sure if they understand where she’s coming from-- she was the only gay girl at her high school, as far as she knows. She knows a few gay guys in her graduating class, but if there were any girls, they weren’t very vocal about it. Which is fair. “I don’t know. I never knew other girls who were into girls. And I was too busy with hockey to try to find any. So, yeah. No dating.”

“God. That sounds like someone else we know,” says Sierra.

Jordan grabs the last handful of chips. Crunch. “Who?”

“Our beloved captain, Celeste Marie Lefebvre,” says Courtney, depositing her mostly-dry plate back on the table.

Jordan gives her empty plate a swipe with her sleeve to get rid of excess crumbs, then drops it on top of Courtney’s plate to start a pile. That would explain why she’s never seen Celeste, a very standardly attractive girl with a lot of talent, with any sort of significant other.

“True. She doesn’t date because it would ‘distract her from the game,’ apparently,” says Sierra.

“Huh. Am I distracted from the game?” Lauren asks Tyler, who is sat right next to her.

“Mm, good question.” He leans over and gives her a quick peck on the lips. “Distracted?”

“Nah. You taste like taco. Nasty.”

Tyler laughs.

“PDA jar, I think?” says Johanna.

“For sure. Fifty cents. Cough it up,” says Sierra, holding out her hands. “It goes toward the beer fund, so it’s a good cause,” she says to Jordan.

“Can I trust that this’ll actually make it to the jar?” Tyler says while he fishes his wallet out of his pocket.

“Absolutely not.” Courtney steps in-between their chairs. “She’ll lose it. Just wait ‘til the next time you’re at La Maison.”

“You wound me, Courtney,” says Sierra. “Anyway! That’s all beside the point. Celeste doesn’t date, Jordan doesn’t date. Does Jordan even have Tinder?”

“I do not have Tinder,” says Jordan. It’s something she’s thought about, but she hasn’t had the guts to download it yet.

Courtney hums. “Well, even Celeste has Tinder.”

“For what?” Jordan asks, surprised. “Finding people to discuss plays with?”

Courtney rolls her eyes, but Johanna snickers. “Nah, for sex.”

If Jordan had water in her mouth at this moment, she would be spitting it out. “What? Like, hookups? Celeste-- hooks up?”

“Every few months,” Sierra says. “Like clockwork.”

Jordan can’t imagine Celeste willingly talking to a guy about sex, let alone partaking in it. It’s a wild image. It’s-- an interesting one, actually. She forces herself to stop thinking about it before her imagination goes for too much detail. “Wow. I thought she was, like, above human desire.”

Courtney shakes her head. “She’s not, like, a goddess. Don’t put her up on a pedestal. She has needs.”

“Yeah,” Sierra nods. “She just represses them as long as she can and then hooks up every few months when she can’t repress it anymore.”

Courtney considers this description, then shrugs. “Pretty much. I kind of wonder if she doesn’t want to date, or if she just doesn’t think she can.”

“Maybe--” Sierra starts, then cuts herself off. “No, we shouldn’t gossip this much about her. Back to the task at hand. As oversimplified as the butch to femme spectrum is, it’s still an integral part of sapphic culture, so we’ll start with that. Johanna, do you still have our Powerpoint of girl types?”

Jordan facepalms. There’s no way she’s going back to her homework after this. They’re on a mission now. And it’s not like she hasn’t spent hours speculating about what it would be like to actually have a girlfriend. Gay in practice instead of in theory. Time to concentrate on that.

And if she texts Sierra late that night to ask her for more details about Celeste’s infamous sexcapades? That’s just natural curiosity at work.

\\_._/

It starts when Jordan wakes up the next morning. Before she even opens her eyes she is uncomfortable aware of the fact that her throat is killing her. Not quite on fire, but it feels scratchy whenever she swallows.

She sits up, fumbles for the Advil she keeps on her nightstand (which is not really a nightstand but rather the standard dorm bookshelf pushed up close to the bed), and swallows three pills before even sitting up. When she does finally manage to roll out of bed, tangled in bedsheets, she finds that she’s uncomfortable in a way she can’t identify. She’s not quite sore-- and she knows sore, she plays hockey-- but that’s probably the closest way of describing the strange tightness in her shoulders and heaviness in her eyes.

She cracks her knuckles and even that feels weird. What the fuck.

Whatever. It’s a bad fucking cold. If she stays in bed she’s just going to get behind in all of her classes and stress herself out more, so she forces herself to stand and wrestles her aching limbs into a clean-ish hoodie and jeans. Her backpack feels five hundred pounds heavier than usual but she tugs it over her shoulder and trudges outside.

She’s hit in the face with a sheet of snow and ice the moment she opens the door to leave her dorm building. The wind is severe enough that it’s blowing the snow horizontally and it bites her bare face like it’s rabid. “Fuck,” says Jordan, several times, while she struggles to pull her hood up and stuffs her hands into the front pocket of the shirt.

She manages to stumble her way to her first class and sits at the back of the lecture hall where no one disturbs her as she dozes off.

Jordan has sweaty, feverish dreams. She's center ice in her skates and nothing else. She's fighting someone, breathing hard, pulling punches in slow-motion, like the air itself is thick enough to resist the movement of her arm. She can feel that her face is wet but it's only when she looks down at the ice she's on that she realized that it's her own blood flowing, staining the surface a rusty red. What the fuck. What the fuck--

“Jordan.”

What?

“Jordan, wake up.”

Jordan is startled awake by this voice and the hand shaking her shoulder roughly. She gasps as she sits up from where she’s slouched in the seat, breath coming in short, eyes bleary as she blinks them open.

“It’s fine! It’s just me. You’re fine.”

Jordan’s vision clears and she sees none other than Celeste in front of her, bent over to see Jordan closer, with an empty lecture hall behind her. The room is dim, with only the light from the projector, left on, illuminating Celeste from behind. It circles her head like a halo, but she looks anything but angelic while she tilts her head and raises her eyebrow at Jordan, seeming very unamused.

“You with me now?”

“Yes.” Jordan says, then impulsively adds, “I wasn’t asleep.”

“You were snoring,” Celeste deadpans. “You’re also burning up, and I’m pretty sure you’re not in my Multivariable Calculus class.”

“No, I’m in European Revolutions.”

“That ended an hour ago,” Celeste says. “My class is going to be in here in twenty minutes, so you might want to leave.”

Jordan does the math in her head. “Shit-- I’m missing Art History.” She springs to her feet and almost immediately falls as the world spins around her and her vision goes blurry. The only thing that keeps her on her feet is Celeste’s hand at her waist.

“I don’t think you should bother with any more classes today. I’m going to walk you home, okay?” Celeste moves her hand to Jordan’s forearm and tugs her in the direction of the door.

“Oh. Okay.” Jordan finds her backpack and picks it up, and the rest of the walk passes in a blur. At some point Celeste asks her for her student ID and she fishes it out to buzz them into her dorm. Then they’re in Jordan’s room.

Celeste has never been there before. It’s very messy. Jordan wishes for once that she didn’t have dirty laundry strewn across her floor. She says as much to Celeste, she thinks, and Celeste just laughs.

“It’s fine. It’s very you.”

Jordan laughs at that, even though it’s not particularly funny. She clumsily flops down onto the mess of sheets on her bed. “Ow. I’m cold.”

“You shouldn’t be. It’s way too hot in here,” says Celeste, and Jordan notices that she’s shrugged out of her coat and her fleece. She’s only wearing a sports bra. When did that happen? “Try actually getting under your blankets, though.”

“Oh, yeah.” Jordan does that. “I feel gross.”

“You’re sick. You should have just stayed in bed today.”

“Nahhhh,” Jordan says. “Hey, don’t you have your class now?”

“My professor won’t mind me missing one day. I’m a little concerned you’re going to make a run for it and try to do something stupid while you’re feverish, so I’m going to stay with you for a bit, okay?”

That was a lot of words. The only thing Jordan got out of that was something about running. “Let’s go running,” she says.

Celeste laughs. She has a pretty laugh. “Maybe when you’re feeling better. Do you want to watch something on your laptop, maybe?”

“I have Netflix,” Jordan says while Celeste stands to get the laptop from her desk. While she’s up Jordan has a perfect view of the Olympic rings tattooed on Celeste’s back, centered between her shoulders on her spine.

It’s a very cool tattoo, but before Jordan can say anything about it her laptop is on her thighs and she’s distracted pulling up Netflix and turning on Goon, which Celeste has somehow never seen. That’s just a shame, so Jordan needs to fix it. Celeste pulls the desk chair next to the bed and they start to watch it together.

Of course, Jordan falls asleep after ten minutes.

When she wakes up she’s alone and her laptop screen is dark. The first thing she thinks is, ow, my throat hurts. The second thing is, Olympics.

She tugs her laptop close again and waits for it to wake up again, resisting the urge to smash the keys because she knows it won’t make it go any faster, even if it does feel good. When it finally has turned on she opens a new tab in her browser and googles “vancouver olympics womens hockey canada.”

Some kind soul has uploaded several entire games to Youtube, so she clicks the first result-- Canada’s first game against Slovakia. Jordan remembers watching this one before: Canada had taken an absolutely mindblowing 18-0 victory. This time around she notices the small girl in the number 18 jersey scored four of those goals.

That’s Celeste Lefebvre, young enough that the number on her jersey matches her age, playing with women many years older than her and very much holding her own. She flies around the ice like nobody’s business and no one can seem to stop her. Her team clearly loves her if their almost too-long celebrations are any indication. She’s surrounded by her team at the end of the game as they proudly skate back to the dressing room and she’s laughing more than Jordan has ever seen her laugh before.

She lets autoplay start game two against Switzerland. Canada wins that game 10-1, and Celeste wins with a hat trick and two assists. Game three against Sweden is just as productive for her-- two goals, four assists, and a huge smile on her face as her home country cheers her name.

The next game is Semifinals. Jordan’s eyes scan the sidebar of related videos and she sees Celeste’s name mentioned in several titles, but she forces herself to click on the full game footage instead, feeling like just looking at the other videos would be cheating.

She doesn’t have to wait long to see what all the other videos are about. Jordan knows what it looks like when one player has it out for another, because she’s been in that place many a time.

Canada is playing Finland and a defensewoman begins to shadow Celeste as soon as she wins the first faceoff. Celeste takes no notice of the special attention: she’s flying high on her victories and the thrill of being in the Olympics.

Even though Jordan can see it coming she still flinches hard reflexively when the Finnish defender boards Celeste.

It’s not just an illegal hit-- it’s malicious. The defensewomen’s shoulder makes contact with Celeste’s neck and shoves her right against the boards, head snapping against them a split second later. The hit is hard enough to knock Celeste’s helmet off and it skitters against the ice as she falls down like a deadweight.

She doesn’t get up.

It takes several minutes to get her off the ice: when she comes to and tries to stand she falls again immediately, unable to stay upright on her skates. It’s hard to tell through the people surrounding her and the low quality camera, but Jordan is pretty sure that she passes out again during that time. She’s finally removed from the ice on a stretcher, and she’s barely awake then. Her hair is matted with blood and her eyes are unable to focus on anything. Definitely concussed and who knows what else.

She looks tiny in her jersey and pads. She looks scared.

Jordan can’t watch any more. She slams her laptop shut and the audio continues for another few seconds before cutting out.

She guesses this is why Celeste doesn’t talk about the Olympics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "All Our Lives" by Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness.
> 
> Some timeline stuff: in the months after her Olympic debut Celeste spends her time rehabing from her concussion, which is pretty severe. She doesn't enroll in college that fall, as planned, and instead it takes her another year to finish high school and recover, so she starts her freshman year at Samwell in fall of 2011 at age 19. That's why she's in the same year as Jack, who also had several years off, despite being two years younger than him. 
> 
> Up next: in lieu of a real clue, here are some lyrics that the chapter title will be based on.  
> "How's your new Ivy League girlfriend?  
> Is she boring too in the way I couldn't stand?  
> And I'm not sorry  
> I just hope you trust her more than me"
> 
> That's Harvard by Diet Cig. You can find me on tumblr as @hockeydyke. As always, comments are very greatly appreciated!


	6. how's your new ivy league girlfriend?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Samwell Women's Hockey plays Harvard and some things are said that won't be easily forgiven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: please notice that the rating has gone up! In addition to explicit content there's also a significant amount of fighting in this chapter, both physical and verbal. One wlw character uses a slur when talking to another wlw character. Internalized sexism also continues to be a thing.
> 
> As usual, disclaimer: Ngozi created OMGCP. I only created SWH.

Their season is put on hold momentarily for winter break. Celeste has never been a fan of going home for the holidays for two main reasons. Firstly, it’s annoying because it disrupts the team just as the season is heating up two months in. Most of her girls like a break from practice, but really, it’s just a distraction. Secondly, there’s nothing more lonesome in the dead of winter than leaving a house full of her friends, her team, her family, to go to a house that’s far too big and far too empty.

Not that staying at Samwell would be any better-- all of her teammates go home for the holidays this year. They trickle out of the house in the days after exams finish up: first Courtney and Ani, taking flights to Pittsburgh and Houston respectively. The next day Lauren and Tyler stop by the house one last time for dinner before they head out to Michigan. That leaves Celeste with Sierra, Johanna, and Jordan.

All of them leave the same day through Boston, so Celeste drives them into the city, dropping the former two off at Sierra’s parents’ house in the suburbs before heading to the train station to send Jordan home.

Celeste gets out of the car with Jordan, although she isn’t sure why, and it leaves her with a dilemma: when Jordan leaves does she hug her, or shake her hand, or what? She’s awful with figuring out what she’s supposed to do with this kind of thing.

In the end, after they chat for a few minutes about the Inferno v Furies game they’d streamed on the TV at the house the night before. It’s actually nice. Jordan still complains about the lack of checking, but Celeste can tell she’s already devoted to a few players. She’s considered telling her that she knows several of them personally, but holds off on the information for now.  
Jordan solves Celeste’s dilemma by checking her watch and saying, “Shit. I gotta go. See you in January, I guess.” She then hoists her duffel bag over her shoulder, straightens up, and gives Celeste a salute before turning and entering the building. 

Huh. That works. 

Celeste waits until Jordan is inside before getting back inside her car and blasting the heat. Her hands are chilly, but deep inside her chest is warm, and she’s not sure why.

\\_._/

January comes, they play a few games, and Celeste is moved from the second to the first line.

This isn’t surprising. It’s happened every season at Samwell so far: she spends fall semester on the second, leads the team in points, and is then moved up to the first. She can never handle it. Within a month she’s always back on the second line, where she at least feels like she’s less of a target. 

By the end of the month she’s in that slump where she knows she could do well on this line, if only she could fucking get her head to listen to reason. She’s not going to get hurt. She’s fine. She can do this. 

She can’t do this. They have an away game at Harvard and they enter the third period tied at 2-2. She’s losing every faceoff but Sierra manages to get a piece of the puck and sauce it to Celeste in the neutral zone. Celeste shoots off down the ice, already anticipating exactly how Harvard’s goalie is going to move. She’s going to her fake her out and win the game. She’s not going to let her team down--

A Harvard defender, their captain, in fact, rushes her from one side-- she doesn’t even make contact, but it’s enough to startle Celeste. She loses possession and Harvard picks it up quickly. Courtney and Sierra can’t keep up with the turnaround and Harvard scores.

It costs them the game.

Celeste costs them the game.

She barely manages to mumble a “good game” to Harvard’s captain before she skates off the ice, head hung low.

The dressing room is maudlin and she gives what is probably the shittiest post-game talk of her entire career. She can’t even think through her shame. She wants to forget all of it. 

And she can, for a little bit. 

See, usually they’d just get bussed back home after a game against Harvard. The drive from Cambridge to Samwell is only forty minutes, give or take, when the traffic isn’t bad. This time, though, the team had made the decision earlier in the week to stay in the city overnight because a blizzard was supposed to roll in right when they would be driving home, and no one wanted to be on the team bus on icy roads during a whiteout. 

That means that Celeste has a hotel room-- not to herself, but her teammates are already planning to get a post-game dinner at a pizza place down the block from their hotel, so it will basically be all hers for at least an hour or two. Celeste is not planning on going with them. Before she’s even sat down on the bus she has her phone out to open up Tinder.

She swipes right on everyone. She doesn’t really care who she gets. She just needs someone quick. 

Her efforts are rewarded within five minutes. Not just a match, but someone who superliked her, apparently. Celeste opens up the chat without even looking at the profile and sends an address.

They arrive at the hotel and Tyler distributes room keys. Celeste waits in the lobby for her match while the rest of the team deposits their stuff in their rooms. They pass by her again on their way out for dinner, bundled up in coats for the walk down the street. Anisa asks her one more time if she wants to come with them, but Celeste shakes her head no. 

“Okay,” Anisa says, although she still looks concerned. “Be safe, okay?” 

“I always am,” Celeste says. “Go have fun.”

“You’re allowed to have fun too, you know.”

“This is fun.”

“Alright.” Anisa knows this is a lost battle, so she turns and leaves Celeste alone in the empty lobby to play on her phone while she waits.

Two minutes later someone steps in front of the uncomfortable chair she’s perched on. Her date. Celeste’s eyes lock on the boots caked with snow and she lifts her head up to take in maroon joggers and a gray Harvard Women’s Hockey hoodie and--

“Hi,” says the girl. “I’m Kate. I don’t think we were properly introduced earlier.”

Oh god. Jesus Christ. Fucking hell. “Tabarnak,” she finally manages.

She recognizes this girl. This is Kate Fielding-- Harvard’s hockey captain. Not just a rival, but one of Samwell’s biggest rivals in the ECAC.

Celeste should not hook up with her.

But god, she’s hot. Her hair-- dark, a little wavy-- is still wet from her post-game shower and her eyes are bright with the humor of the situation. Celeste is speechless, but thankfully, Kate is not. 

“You said you have a room?” 

“Oh. Yeah.” Celeste shakes her head to clear it, then stands. Before she can grab her bag Kate has lifted it to her shoulders, and this also does something to Celeste. “Do you want to come up and see it?”

“That sounds great,” says Kate. Celeste leads the way to the elevator. The little paper envelope her room key is in says that she’s on the fifth floor. The ride up that far is long enough to give Kate time to lean forward, ducking her head a little bit to make up for the height difference, and kiss Celeste.

The ding of the elevator reaching their floor interrupts them for just a moment-- they hurry out of the elevator, giggling at their own clumsiness, and spend a few minutes trying to find the right room. When they do they spill in and barely make it to the empty bed before they’re back to making out. Celeste doesn’t get drunk often, but that’s how she feels now-- intoxicated on kissing alone. 

Well, kissing, and Kate’s hands. And her hips. And, huh, looks like clothes are coming off already. Celeste has no complaints about that. Kate is bold in a way she likes a lot. 

Kate goes down on her and Celeste has to press her face into the too-soft hotel pillow to keep from screaming. One of her hands is on Kate’s shoulder and the other is fisted in her hair, which is a very good length for pulling. Celeste lasts an embarrassingly short few minutes, but she can’t even bring herself to be unhappy about that, because it feels so damn good. When she finishes she can’t keep herself quiet, but Kate seems thrilled by this, coaxing her through it with her mouth and moving back up to kiss Celeste on the lips once she’s relaxed again. 

They kiss for a few more minutes before Celeste flips Kate to return the favor. She pulls away from her lips to work her way down Kate’s torso, asking permission before she leaves a mark on her collarbone, enjoying the way Kate squirms underneath her while she sucks on the pale skin there. She dips down Kate’s torso to with her kisses, heading south, and--

The room light snaps on and Celeste startles, the movement jabbing her elbow into Kate’s ribcage. 

“Ow!” says Kate. 

“What the fuck?” 

Celeste’s first impulse is to grab the sheets to tug back up around her naked torso. She then rolls off from Kate and onto her side facing the door, where Jordan is standing, room key in hand, glaring. 

Kate giggles and Celeste jabs her elbow at her again, this time on purpose.

“What?” Celeste’s arousal doesn’t disappear completely, but the shame from earlier is back full-force. It feels weird. “Ani’s my roommate,” she says, dumbly.

“Ani’s with Jess because Megan has the flu and Jess can’t be with Emily and Tyler didn’t want to split up the seniors and Ani offered to switch up but then you needed a roommate and so he put me with you because Lauren can just stay in his room,” says Jordan, voice raising with anger as she speaks. 

Celeste doesn’t follow that whole sequence of events. Her mind feels like the gray fuzz of a TV tuned to a channel it doesn’t have. “Why are you here?” she manages, after a moment.

“I left my wallet.” As if to prove this, Jordan swoops down onto the desk and grabs the wallet off of it. “Why are you hooking up with a Harvard girl?” Jordan hisses.

“Ouch,” says Kate. “Maybe I should go?”

“Yeah, I fucking think so,” says Jordan. 

“Hey,” Celeste warns. “We’re adults. You don’t get to dictate what we can do.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you do. I just don’t want to walk in on it,” Jordan says, putting her gloves back on. 

Kate is already pulling away from Celeste, leaving the bed cold as she tugs on her clothes. “She has a point,” Kate says, nodding at Jordan. “I’d rather not be in the middle of whatever this is. You have a nice night now, Lefebvre,” she says.

Celeste stares at her. “You too.”

Kate slips past Jordan, then hovers in the doorway. “Good game,” she says to Jordan after a moment, then leaves. 

Jordan shoots one last glare at Celeste, then follows her out, slamming the door behind them.  
Celeste hopes to god that one of them takes the stairs. That would be an awkward elevator ride.

God, she doesn’t even want to think about it. She sprawls onto her back, naked, sweaty, spread-eagle on the twisted sheets, and stares at a crack on the ceiling. Being walked in on by Ani or Courtney would be embarrassing enough. Having a rookie-- having Jordan-- catch her in a compromising position? That feels like the end of the world. 

Without warning her eyes fill with angry, frustrated tears that she clumsily blinks back as she sits up and lets out a hoarse, wordless shout to the empty room. Fuck this. Fuck Jordan. She wants pizza.

\\_._/

SWH and a couple of drunk college kids are the only ones in the shabby little pizzeria. The team has commandeered every table in the place to push together in the middle of the eating area and Celeste hopes to god that they asked if they could to that. She has a feeling they didn’t. 

There is, unfortunately, a bell at the door that alerts the team to Celeste’s entrance. God. She just wants to have dinner with her own team and she feels like she’s in enemy territory.

That is, until Courtney flashes her a grin and Sierra waves her over. Celeste holds up a finger-- just a minute. She heads up to the counter and orders herself a slice and a drink, fills up her cup with water, then goes back to the table. There’s an empty seat around the middle of the tables.

It’s right across from Jordan, but it would look bad if Celeste avoided the only empty seat. 

She sits, setting down her plate and cup and the empty chatter dies down as Jordan tilts up her chin proudly and slouches back in her chair, arms crossed.

“Oh captain, my captain,” she says. “Done fraternizing with the enemy for the night?” 

Celeste grips her cup hard enough that it starts to lose its shape. Don’t take the bait. Don’t do it.

Jordan smirks. “Maybe fraternizing isn’t the right word. Does fucking sound closer?” 

Celeste springs up to her feet, slamming both hands down on the table, tunnel vision blocking out any of her teammates’ reactions, thank God. “Don’t do this in front of everyone.”

“Why not?” Jordan says, still wearing an easy, mean grin. “You didn’t have any issue doing it in front of me.”

She’s going straight for the kill. Celeste is certain that Jordan has realized by now that there’s nothing she hates more than looking bad in front of her team. But if Jordan is going to play dirty-- and god, does she know how to play dirty-- then maybe it’s Celeste’s turn to serve it right back at her. 

“Don’t lash out at me because you’re jealous that I’m actually getting action,” Celeste says, coolly, then sits back down.

“Oh, please,” Jordan says, crossing her arms. “It’s not that hard to get a random girl on Tinder to fuck if you have no standards.”

“I’d say it’s pretty hard if you’re terrified with being with another girl.”

“Hey,” Courtney cuts in. “Low blow. Cut it out.”

They both ignore her, content to glare at each other. Jordan doesn’t seem to have a response ready, so Celeste continues. “I can tell you’re scared. Don’t want to disappoint your family by being a full-blown dyke, huh?” She regrets saying that as soon as the words leave her mouth. It’s not like she hasn’t had the same fears the she knows Jordan has. She’s heard Jordan talk about her family, cautiously, almost timid, saying stuff that she trusted the team not to use against her like Celeste is now.

If she’s shocked at what Celeste just said, she isn’t letting it show. “At least my parents are proud of me for playing hockey.”

“My dad’s proud,” Celeste says, automatic. 

“Doesn’t take you seriously, though, does he? My dad might not like that I’m a fucking lesbian, but at least he lets me play with his boys without thinking I’m about to break.”

“Oh, and that’s what makes you a better player, huh? Playing with the boys?” Celeste growls, which isn’t a sound she was aware she could even make. “Because women’s hockey is just a poor imitation of the real thing, right? This is just temporary. You’re still convinced you can go on and play in the NHL.”

Jordan opens her mouth but no words come out. 

Celeste raises one eyebrow. She knows she’s hit home. “You think you’re better than all of us because you can play real hockey, right? Too bad you’re never actually going to make it to any men’s professional league. You’re stuck with us. How do you like that?” 

Jordan’s brow furrows and she stands up. Celeste stands as well, head tilted up to make eye contact with Jordan as they glare at each other. 

“You think you’re such a perfect damn martyr for all women,” Jordan says. “But you already peaked. You’re too afraid to ever be good. It’s all downhill from here.”

Several things happen at once. Celeste lunges across the table and makes contact with Jordan’s shoulder with a hard shove. Jordan reels back, then lunges onto the table so she can shove Celeste back. She clambers over to Celeste’s side and Celeste draws back her arm to take a swing at her--

Only to have her arm held back by Courtney, who had rushed to her side as soon as they started to fight. Celeste shouts incoherently at Courtney, trying to get her arm free to make the punch, while the rest of the team breaks into loud talking and shouting around them. 

When she looks back up at Jordan she sees her back against the table, arms pinned to her side by Zoe and Chloe while she struggles to break free. Her hair-- cut over winter break, thank God-- is wild and her face flushed. Celeste is certain she looks no better. 

Eventually the roaring anger in Celeste’s ears subsides enough that she can hear Courtney shushing her. She’s passed off to Sierra as Courtney steps in between her and Jordan. 

“You both need to chill the fuck out. None of us are going to stand here and watch physical violence between our teammates. You’re not going to be rooming with each other tonight. We’ll have a damn team meeting tomorrow to deal with this.

Sometimes Celeste feels like Courtney should be captain. She certainly deserves it more than Celeste does right now. She hangs her head in defeat, tensing up as she sees Zoe and Chloe let Jordan go free out of the corner of her eye. Jordan doesn’t come at her, though. She just stands there, hands fisted, breathing heavy.

“Take a walk, Jordan. The fresh air will help,” says Courtney.

Jordan lets out a grunt that quickly turns into an ugly, primal shout as she picks up one of the chairs at the table-- light hard plastic, thankfully-- and heaves it at a wall. The resulting clatter is loud enough that several of the girls who haven’t already escaped the pizzeria run outside. The poor kid running the register doesn’t seem to know what to do.

“Take a walk,” Courtney repeats. This time Jordan turns on her heels and leaves. 

The rest of them are kicked out of the pizzeria a moment later. 

Celeste sits down on the curb, where snow almost immediately soaks through the bottom of her leggings. She stares out at the pavement, empty of cars during the middle of the night. 

“We do our best to understand when you lash out,” says Courtney, stepping out onto the road in front of her. “We know you have a lot of shit going on. I know you and Jordan have had issues with each other from the beginning. But there’s a difference between arguing and attacking each other.”

“I’m sorry,” says Celeste. She wishes she could rewind time.

“You’re not. You two hate each other right now.”

Celeste can’t deny it. She feels a lot of things when she thinks about Jordan, but right now, hate is definitely one of them. 

“You’re the best captain I’ve ever had, Celeste,” Courtney says, and Celeste feels for just a brief moment like she’s won something, somehow. Then Courtney continues, “But right now, you don’t deserve the title. Think about what you did. I know you can do better. I just--” Courtney sighs, frustrated, kicking the curb.

“You two could be so much more,” she finally says, then steps back onto the sidewalk to walk back to the hotel.

The wind picks up and Celeste shivers.

Jordan Kelly has ruined her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Harvard by Diet Cig.
> 
> Hey, sometimes people are really fucking mean. Hope that doesn't scare anyone off. I swear things get better.
> 
> You'll notice that Jordan and Celeste discuss CWHL teams in this chapter, even though I previously had them discussing both the NWHL and CWHL. I just realized how much of a mistake that is, since the NWHL's inaugural season was 2015-16 and this story is currently set at 2013-14, Jordan's freshman year. I'll probably be going back and editing chapter 3 to agree with that fact. 
> 
> Up next: Team meeting and Jordan and Celeste get a damn hobby. It's about time.
> 
> Comments and input mean the world to me, either here or via tumblr, where I'm @hockeydyke!


	7. just a young gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Actions have consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, this is a day late! I'm so sorry about that-- I have good reason, though? I started my (woefully unpaid) internship this week and I'm working three days a week on top of classes and some other work stuff too, so I'm pretty busy! Not to mention my whole mess of social issues. Ask me about my love life sometime. It sure is something.
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: minorly self-sabotaging actions that may potentially count as self-harm? It's not graphic and it's very temporary, but a character definitely seeks out pain. Read at your own risk!
> 
> As usual, credit for OMGCP goes to Ngozi.

When the bus leaves promptly at nine the next morning, Celeste isn’t on it. 

Jordan knows how obvious she’s being when she stands up on top of her seat toward the back to scan the entire bus for Celeste, but at this point, she really doesn’t give a damn. It’s not like she can make things worse. 

Their driver yells at her to get down and she does, hitting the seat with a soft thud and then turning to Sierra, sitting across the aisle, to glare at her. 

Not that Jordan has any right to glare. Nearly the entire team has been giving her the silent treatment this morning. But that’s exactly it-- they already know how to be chaotic she is. No point pretending to be nice anymore. 

Sierra, anyway, seems to get what Jordan’s trying to say and takes off her headphones.

“She and Courtney are taking an Uber back.”

Jordan rolls her eyes. “What, you don’t trust us to ignore each other for one bus ride?”

“Yup,” Sierra says.

Jordan opens her mouth to serve some bullshit right back but finds herself lacking anything to defend herself. Sierra has a point. She sprawls back in her seat and lets her head loll to the side, forehead hitting the frozen glass of the window, and looks outside at the snow and the highway. 

Jordan hasn’t even seen Celeste since last night. And god, what a night that was. 

\\_._/

Last night.

After storming away from the pizzeria she wanders the streets of Cambridge for a while, kicking at fire hydrants lampposts until she feels less angry and more sorry for herself. How sad, how pitiful, how weak, to be walking the streets of a strange city alone and cold, with all of her friends angry at her. 

Eventually she can’t feel her fingers anymore, and at that point her sense of self-preservation outweighs her need to feel like a victim and she heads back to the hotel, where Sierra and Johanna intercept her in the lobby and drag her up to their room. They spend a few minutes reprimanding her for making them worry before they put her to bed.

She doesn’t sleep at all. Instead she lays on her side and stares for hours at some dumb minimalist art print on the hotel wall, wondering if it’s too late to submit a transfer application for the next academic school year. 

At six in the morning, when the room was still completely dark, she can’t stand it any longer and gets up. For lack of anywhere else to go in the small room she ends up in the bathroom, where she takes what may be the hottest shower of her life. It’s hot enough that when she gets out her skin stings lobster-red, painful, even brighter than she’d been the time she and her sisters and cousins had spent five hours out on canoes in Canandaigua Lake without sunscreen when she was in sixth grade. 

She uses the heel of her palm to rub a circle in the middle of the condensation on the mirror so she can get a better look at herself. 

So, that’s Jordan Kelly. 

Hulking, flat-chested, plain-faced, Jordan Kelly. Jordan Kelly, have you seen her haircut? I always knew she was a dyke. Fine on the ice, but clumsy-footed whenever she steps off of it. The problem child-- the one who didn’t get the good grades like her sisters, or join the damn church choir or art club, or bring boyfriends home. The one who got into a fight with Chris Lewinski in first grade on the playground, was sent to the principal’s office and then to a special class for kids with behavioral issues. Then again in third grade when she decked Tommy Mancini during P.E. kickball. And in fifth grade, sixth grade, and so on, ad infinitum. 

Jordan Kelly, sopping wet, hunched over in the middle of the bathroom and looking at herself in the mirror like it’s the first time she’s ever seen herself, and wondering why she does this. 

There’s something overwhelming about being forced to look at herself and she can’t help but fall to her knees, hitting the floor solidly. It hurts. The pain shooting through her kneecaps is enough to shock her into tears. 

Kneeling in a puddle she’s created on the bathroom floor, naked, skin stinging, she sobs for the first time in years. 

Jordan irritates her teachers until they send her to stand in the hallway and think about her behavior. Jordan aggravates her captain to the point where she’s driven to violence. Jordan purposely burns herself in the shower. 

Jordan sabotages her own life. 

Why?

Crying in the bathroom, feeling the worse she’s felt in years, it’s pretty obvious. She wants someone to barge into the room, save her from her own stupid actions, wrap her up in a towel, and shush her crying with gentle words and soft touches. What have you done? How can I help? 

She wants to be taken care of. She doesn’t want to be an adult. She hates this. 

She doesn’t know how to stop herself from being so much.

Eventually she runs out of tears, stands up, and wraps up in a towel. Thankfully she knows how to put on a game face. She’s dressed and ready to go home by the time Sierra and Johanna wake up. 

She’s never felt so fake in her life. 

\\_._/

When the bus drops them back off on campus she’s instructed to go home and clean up, then meet the girls at the house for a team meeting. 

One change of clothes and a bagel later she’s back the good old Maison, standing outside the door and wondering if she should knock. She hasn’t knocked since the first few times she came over, but it feels like she should do so now. 

Ultimately she decides to just walk in. When she does the house is not eerily quiet and ominous like she’d imagined, but rather buzzing with its usual flow of conversation and laughter, all coming from the living room. The energy makes her feel the tiniest bit less nervous.

When she steps into the room and they all go silent, the anxiety comes back full-force.

Most of the team-- not just the members who live in the house-- are there, staring at her. They’re going to kick her off the team. She’s living her last few moments as a member of Samwell Women’s Hockey. She’s as good as dead to all of them.

“Hey, Baby Butch,” says Johanna, perched on the arm of the big couch. She pats the back of one of the kitchen chairs that’s been dragged to the living room. “Sit down.”

Jordan does so. Instead of her normal wide-legged spread, she curls up on herself, pulling her knees close and resting her feet on the seat of the chair and resting her chin on her knees. 

“I’ll get Celeste,” says Anisa, and leaves the room. One minute-- though it feels like an hour-- later, she returns with Celeste in tow and deposits her on another kitchen chair across the room from Jordan.

The two chairs are facing each other. This is the worst face-off Jordan’s ever been in, no doubt about it. She can’t help but look at Celeste, hair greasy, dark circles under her eyes, dressed in a ratty old Habs hoodie and leggings. When they meet eyes she ducks her head and Jordan looks away.

Courtney steps between them a moment later. “Alright. I’m not going to bother going over why we’re here, since we clearly all already know. The team has already discussed--” 

Celeste clears her throat and sits up straighter. “Can I have a few words?”

Courtney considers this request, then nods. 

Celeste stands, shaky. When she speaks it occurs to Jordan, more obviously than usual, that English isn’t Celeste’s first language. She stutters through her words now. “After considering my actions, I’ve realized that I’ve let down the entire team in an unforgivable way. I don’t deserve to lead you all when I’m setting that kind of example. I’m sure you’ve already agreed on this, but I’m stepping down from the captaincy.”

Jordan’s jaw drops and as she looks around she realizes she’s not the only one. Zoe-- or is it Chloe? One of them audibly gasps. 

Anisa shakes her head. “We’re not asking you to do that.”

“We don’t want you to do that,” Sierra adds. 

Celeste shrugs and sits back down. She looks small.

Courtney straightens back up and steps in front of the TV, where she can face all of them at once. “The general consensus seems to be that that’s not what we want. You’re our captain, Celeste. That’s a commitment you made to the team and that’s a commitment we made to you. You are on probation, though.”

Celeste’s head snaps back up and she raises an eyebrow. “Probation?”

“Yeah. Still captain, but you you’re going to be doing something for us for a bit to earn back our respect.”

“Anything,” Celeste says, without hesitation. 

I’d do anything, Jordan thinks, to stay on the team. 

Courtney nods, then looks at Jordan as well, and says, “You two are going to be spending your Sundays with each other for the rest of the semester. You’re going to be working with us to plan activities. You’re going to learn how to get along with each other.”

Jordan locks eyes with Celeste and Courtney steps between them, but neither makes any movement to go at each other like she’s anticipating. 

“We’re going on playdates with each other?” Jordan asks, dry, then cringes. Can’t she go one minute without complaining? This is the best thing that could have happened. She’s not being kicked off the team. She and Celeste just have to, like, sit in the same room and ignore each other for a few minutes each week. That’s easy.

“Yes, because you two are acting like children. Three hours each Sunday for the rest of the school year, or however long it takes for you to show improvement.”

Jordan resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Jesus,” she says.

Across the room, Celeste looks relieved, but also like she wants to be anywhere else right now. Courtney glances back at her, then back out at the room.

“Meeting dismissed. Y’all can go,” she says, nodding. Jordan thinks she’d make an excellent judge or Supreme Court justice or something, if that ever ends up on her career path. 

Jordan starts to stand up but Courtney is standing right in front of her. She’s silent for a minute as the rest of the girls spill out of the room, just watching Jordan and trapping her in place. “One more thing, Baby Butch.”

“What?” 

“I didn’t want to say it in front of the whole team, but there’s an addendum to your probation requirements.”

Jordan swallows. She feels sweaty. “Yeah?”

“You’re going to be scheduling yourself a few appointments with the campus counseling center,” Courtney says.

“I’m going to be what? Why?” Jordan doesn’t give a shit at this point-- she stands up, the movement forcing Courtney to take a step back.

“Jordan, we know you have anger management issues. That’s fine. You can’t control that. You can control how you cope with it, though. Throwing chairs isn’t coping.”

“I don’t have any issues. Throwing chairs is fine,” Jordan says, but as she does, she recognizes that she’s balling her fists and raising her voice.

“Yeah?” Courtney steps back up to her. She’s almost as tall as Jordan and looks her straight in the eye. 

“Yeah,” Jordan says, deflating as the fight goes out of her. 

“Clear your schedule for that. It’ll help. I swear. We’re doing this because you both need help.”

Jordan nods, glum. Whatever. 

She’s still on the team. It’s the best she can ask for. 

\\_._/

“If their whole issue is us fighting, then why’d they make us sign up for more fighting?” Jordan says a week later in the locker room after their first group self-defense class while she rubs at her aching wrist.

“There wasn’t actually any real fighting,” Celeste says. She’s sweaty and red-faced. Her headband has slipped down around her neck. 

“We got to wrestle. That was fighting.”

“We weren’t supposed to wrestle,” Celeste mutters.

It was surprisingly good, though. The free class from the university rec center is the first thing the team decided to sign them up for, which completely shocked Jordan when they first told her. She was pretty certain that signing her up to fight Celeste would actually just make her more angry. 

On the contrary-- they’d spent most of the time learning how to break various holds. Jordan is stronger than Celeste, but Celeste is very good at figuring out exactly where to pull or push to get away. They’re very well-matched for this.

And now, after two hours spent with Celeste on sweaty gym mats, Jordan has to admit that she actually had a pretty good time. Turns out wrestling with someone you’re frustrated at with an instructor right there to keep you in check is actually kind of therapeutic. Who knew.

Granted, they also avoided talking at all. Right now, getting changed after the class, is the first time they’ve spoken actual sentences at each other all day. 

“We have another hour of time together. Do you want lunch?” Celeste says as she takes off her t-shirt. She turns away from Jordan and Jordan has an excellent view of her Olympic rings tattoo.

“Your treat? Sure,” Jordan says.

Celeste turns her head just enough that Jordan can see her roll her eyes, but she doesn’t say no. They head out a few minutes later. 

Half an hour later they get into a fight about college football and Jordan storms out of the cafeteria. Anisa calls her later to tell her that if she leaves a Sunday session early again, they’ll all be increased to four hours. 

Jordan chucks her phone at a wall after that and shouts into her pillow for a solid minute.

\\_._/

Week two consists of library study time together. They don’t say a single word to each other, but they last the whole three hours without issue, so Jordan considers is a success.

\\_._/

Week three is cooking. Ani prints them out a recipe for some fancy lasagna and they’re shut into the kitchen together with the instruction not to leave until they’ve finished making dinner. They last the three hours but spend the entire time bickering. Jordan checks her watch every few minutes, counting down the time before she can get away from Celeste’s prissy, self-righteous face. 

Then, after they’re done making everything and their time is up, Jordan is surprised to find that she does in fact want to stay at the house to eat dinner with everyone. It tastes awful but they have nice conversation and good laughs anyway, even with Celeste there.

\\_._/

Week four is sledding. After a pretty stupid attempt to make a ramp Jordan sprains her ankle and has to sit out their next game. Celeste drives her to the ER, fingers white on the steering wheel, jaw set in a firm frown, and snaps at Jordan whenever she tries to joke about the situation. They end up spending five hours together.

\\_._/ 

Week five brings them to Faber for ice time. Celeste’s been begging for this for weeks, arguing that their forced bonding will be better if it helps them on the ice as well.

“Trust me, all of this is helping on the ice,” Courtney has insisted, but she finally agrees to their one-on-one practice on the condition that they also get lunch again afterward.

They show up earlier than Jordan would like to be up on a Sunday morning because apparently that’s the only time the ice is free on Sunday. They’re not, however, the only ones there, Jordan discovers as they step out onto the ice, all suited up in pads and practice jerseys.

There are two guys out there, center ice, in regular clothes and skates, pushing each other around and laughing. 

Jordan recognizes one of them. She’s met one of them, in fact.

“Jack Zimmermann?” she says, turning to Celeste to make sure that she’s correct. Obviously she knows the Zimmermann goes to Samwell, but she’s never actually run into him on campus. He’s fairly secretive, according to all the student gossip.

Celeste ignores her, wasting no time hauling herself over the boards and skating over and greeting Jack in French. It’s too early for Jordan to try to figure out what they’re saying, so she follows Celeste and hovers behind her awkwardly. 

Jack Zimmermann is even larger than she remembers, even without pads. Then again, she’d met him when he was still in the Q, in an awkward stage between baby fat and gangly teenager, and nowhere near his grown height. He’d kind of scared her then. Now there’s a grin flitting at the edge of his mouth, directed at the other guy he’s skating with.

The other guy is small and blonde. Jordan doesn’t even give him a second glance until she realizes that he’s talking to her. 

“Gosh, I don’t have a clue what they’re saying. Do you?”

Jordan jerks to attention and listens for a moment. “Uh, something about dinner? Or maybe classes? I’m not sure at all, to be honest.”

“Well, that’s better than I’ve got! I’m Bitty, by the way. Also here for hockey believe it or not.”

Huh. Impressive. Then again, Jordan knows several very good small players. “I’m Jordan.” She holds out her hand and they shake. “So, how come you’re here so early?” she asks. 

“Checking practice!” he says, bopping Jack’s leg with his hip to demonstrate. Jack gives him the gentlest of shoves back. 

“Oh. If you ever need help, Celeste and I are great at checking.” Jordan considers giving Celeste a push but decides against it. It might be the first rational decision she’s ever made when it comes to Celeste.

Hearing her name seems to remind Celeste that she and Jack aren’t the only ones there. “Oh, right. Jack, this is Jordan. She’s a little shit.”

“That’s true,” Jordan says.

Jack raises his brows. That’s fair. Not everyone can grasp the subtleties of their Celeste and Jordan’s hatred for each other. He takes Jordan in for a second, almost sizing her up, and Jordan looks him dead on, chin raised proudly. 

He doesn’t recognize her. Of course.

“This is Bitty. He’s okay,” Jack says, finally.

Bitty laughs. “High praise, Mr. Zimmermann. We should head out, though. It was nice meeting you two! Maybe we can all practice together sometime.”

Celeste and Jack share a thrilled look. 

“Christ. You’ve unleashed hockey monsters,” Jordan says, but she has to admit that it does sound fun. “See you around, I guess.”

Bitty smiles at her before he and Jack leave the ice so she and Celeste can warm up. 

As she skates a few laps Jordan has mixed feelings. They’re complicated, but they mostly boil down to happiness at meeting another player who doesn’t exactly fit the mold perfectly, and conversely, bitter, bitter anger at Jack Zimmermann. 

When they dump out some pucks and Jordan shoots three in quick succession, Celeste even comments on it. “What’s got you all wired up?”

Jordan shoots another puck. It goes wide and slams into the boards. 

“Sometimes I get angry,” she says, because it’s true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Thunder by Imagine Dragons. 
> 
> So. Thoughts on Jordan? She sounds like an angsty emo teen right now, I know. But the first year of college is rough. Not everyone can cope with being dependent on themselves. It's a rough transition. 
> 
> Also, hmm. She's met Jack before? That's interesting. 
> 
> Up next: Jordan's freshman year wraps up!
> 
> As always, you can follow me on tumblr where I'm @hockeydyke and will be blogging even more than usual as hockey season starts up. Hit me up there or leave a comment here if you'd like!


	8. you're weak but not giving in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year one of Jordan's time at Samwell comes to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Celeste's POV this week!
> 
> OMGCP belongs to Ngozi, who is kind enough to let people write fic about her hockey stuff. Thanks, Ngozi!

Long story short, they don’t make it to the NCAA finals. Some of the team gathers in the living room to watch Clarkson win the tournament on a livestream. Jordan’s got some relative or another at Clarkson, so when they score the final goal and win 5-4 Celeste can hear her hoarse screaming from upstairs.

She’s upstairs because she can’t bear to watch, and she can’t bear to watch because they were _so fucking close_.

Celeste’s proud of her girls. She herself was, unsurprisingly, moved back down to the second line by February, but their regular first line, all seniors, quickly got back into the swing of things. Their defenders were also impressing her-- especially Courtney and Sierra. The two of them were quickly becoming a well-oiled machine out there on the ice.

The team is working hard, but they’re getting tired and frustrated at this point in the season. Samwell’s never made it to the national NCAA finals-- they’ve made it to regional tournaments, but they always choke at that point. Celeste is pretty sure the team feels that history like a curse, like they’re going into something unbeatable.

That doesn’t keep Celeste from having high hopes. She can’t. She’s their captain-- she has to show them that it’s possible.

So she pushes them and she tells them when they’re doing good things. And, yes, she has to admit that she’s also pretty impressed with Jordan, too. Jordan has become a solid presence on their third line, especially now that Celeste can stand to watch her without her heart skipping every other beat. Sure, Jordan is impulsive and gets penalized more than anyone else on the team, but she’s aggressive, so she also gets more shots on goal than anyone else.

Coach Lewis pulls Celeste aside to watch Jordan one practice in late February while Anisa and and their line’s center go against her, two-on-one. There’s a moment when Ani’s moving to intercept Jordan right around the blue line and Celeste’s mind, fine-tuned from twenty-some years of playing, can see exactly where Ani is going to move next. If Celeste was out there she’d veer left and accelerate past both of her opponents. Then again, Celeste is a lot faster than any of them, but it’s still the most logical move.

Instead of doing that Jordan stays directly in her lane until the last possible second. It’s a sped up game of chicken, or maybe a joust: Ani and Jordan are headed right for each other at top speed. Celeste flinches in anticipation for the contact, but Jordan has correctly anticipated that Ani will inch just the tiniest bit out of her line of contact at the last second. It gives Jordan the space she needs to fake Ani out, dangling and finally heading left. A few seconds later she scores on the empty net.

“That,” says Coach Lewis.

Celeste must have missed him say something else, she thinks. “What?”

“That’s what you need.”

Again, Celeste says, “What?”

Coach Lewis nods at Jordan, who’s gripped Ani by the back of her practice jersey and is now swinging her around in clumsy circles. “You need to take chances.”

Celeste cringes when Jordan lets go and Ani goes flying. “I do take chances.”

“Not like Jordan does.”

“Jordan’s impulsive.”

Coach Lewis shrugs. “Yes, and she’s been working on not letting her impulsivity get in the way of teamwork and successful plays. It’s still something I like to see, though.”

Celeste picks at the tape at the handle of her stick. “I don’t think that’s something I can be taught.”

“No, I don’t think so either. But I think you being aggressive will help.”

“Again, I don’t know how well you can teach me how to be aggressive,” Celeste says with a huff. Coach is telling her things she’s known for ages and doesn’t, quite frankly, need to hear again.

“Nah. That’s something you get with experience.”

Great. Good talk, Coach. “I’m out here practicing every day. I have experience.”

“You practice alone, Celeste. You need to go against someone one-on-one.”

Celeste pauses her fiddling with the tape. That’s-- fair. She reserves ice time regularly outside of team practice, but barring the few times she’s brought Jordan out to work on plays, she hits the ice alone to work on agility and shooting. It’s not that she doesn’t want to work with other players-- it’s just a byproduct of being in the same habit of practicing daily, year-round, every day. Back in middle school none of the girls other than Celeste had the discipline or desire to spend three or four hours practicing at a time; in high school, they had better and more exciting things to do than spend more time with Celeste, who they didn’t really like in the first place. And now, at Samwell, everyone’s just too fucking busy for it most of the time.

“I’m not going to make them sacrifice their free time to work with me on something I should have figured out years ago,” Celeste says, frowning.

Coach cocks his head at her. “You know, you can afford to be a little selfish when you need help. And really, it’s not asking too much for a just a few of the girls to do just one extra practice with you before the end of the season.”

Hmm.

Hmm.

“Oh my god. You’re right,” Celeste says, lifting her stick. She barely remembers to turn her head and shout “Thanks!” to Coach Lewis before she skates off to talk to Courtney. She has a great idea. It’s not what Coach is talking about it, but it’s a great idea.

\\_._/

There’s less than three weeks left of their regular scheduled season and one month until the Hockey East tournament, if they make it that far.

Celeste meets with each and every girl on the SWH roster for a one-on-one practice before then. That’s 23 girls, all years, all positions, for a few hours each of uninterrupted practice on whatever they want to do with Celeste, or whatever Celeste thinks they need. By March it feels like Celeste’s every waking moment is spent on the ice. When she closes her eyes at night-- or more accurately, at 3am most mornings after staying up to do the bare minimum on her schoolwork after entire evenings spent practicing-- she sees white and feels like she’s skating. She dreams of hockey constantly.

It’s not what Coach Lewis wanted her to do. It’s exactly what the team needs, though.

They keep winning games. They make it to Hockey East and Celeste hits the ice buzzing with a confidence she’s never felt before-- not about herself, but about her girls. She can sense it from them: they feel ready for anything.

They play hard. Boston University beats them in an arduous, hellscape of a game that continues scoreless until overtime, when BU’s star center finally scores on Johanna.

Celeste skates to her as BU jumbles together on center ice to celebrate. She wraps Johanna in a tight hug and presses the cages of their helmets together, repeating over and over that they’re going to get there next year.

They return to the locker room. They shower. They go home.

\\_._/

So here’s Celeste now, sitting in her room with a stack of readings that have piled up while she’s neglected her classes in favor of hockey, while her teammates get drunk and watch the finals downstairs.

She has a little more than a month before exams and now that she’s feeling pretty fucking bad about her future in hockey, she probably ought to be putting all of her energy into her degree.

Everyone yelling downstairs isn’t helping. Celeste has noise-cancelling headphones, yet she can still hear their louder shouts and feel the vibrations of their movement through the shaky floors of the house.

Eventually enough is enough and she tosses her headphones onto the mess of papers on her bed, strides across the bedroom, and throws open her door--

Only to find Jordan right on the other side, hand poised in the air, frozen pre-knock.

“Oh,” says Celeste.

“Oh,” says Jordan.

They stare at each other, silent for a moment. It’s a Sunday. They already spent several hours together today shovelling snow and trying to bake brownies during their mandatory bonding time. It feels to Celeste like they should be completely out of things to talk about and willingness to put up with each other.

She steps aside to let Jordan into the room. Jordan hovers in the doorway for a moment, surprised to be welcome, before she steps in. Celeste sits down at her desk again and Jordan moves a textbook to make space for herself on the bed. She sits almost gingerly, tucked into herself, which is a strange look on her, especially because she smells like beer and usually is a lot messier of a drunk.

Celeste turns her desk chair to face the bed and starts to ask, “Have you been--”

“Thank you for working with me,” Jordan blurts out. “I’ve gotten so much fucking faster this season. I didn’t even think that was possible.”

“It wasn’t just me,” Celeste says. Coach Lewis has been running a lot of agility drills throughout the season. Celeste’s practice is nothing compared to all of that.

Jordan scowls and it makes her look a lot more like herself. “No, I mean, thanks for working with just me. You did that with everyone. What the fuck, Celeste? You didn’t have to. _Everyone_. Even me.”

She’s getting emotional and Celeste tenses up, not quite sure how to respond. “You’re part of the team, Jordan. You all deserve my attention.”

Jordan gives a high-pitched, exasperated sigh, like Celeste is missing something. “But we hate each other,” she says, sliding off the bed and stumbling over to Celeste. Before Celeste even has time to think about it Jordan is standing between her legs and putting a hand on either shoulder, staring her in the eyes with an intensity that makes Celeste’s heart beat fast. “We hate each other,” Jordan repeats.

“No, we don’t,” Celeste says, completely honest.

Jordan stares at her for another excruciating few seconds before nodding. She doesn’t move, though, until Celeste stands and puts a hand on her arm to spin her to face the door.

“You need to go drink some water, Jordan. Why don’t you stay the night here, okay? Have Ani help you with the futon.”

Jordan nods, pliant and willing for once in her goddamn life, although she does grumble, “I know how to use the futon.”

“Of course you do,” says Celeste, walking her to the door. She stops her at the threshhold, though, and moves her hand to Jordan’s shoulder. On a whim-- an impulse, really-- she stands on her toes and says, quietly, “I’m sorry I called you a dyke. That was completely out of line. I’m sorry for everything I said, really.”

Jordan ducks her head but glances at Celeste out of the corner of her eye. God, her eyes are dark right now. “I’m sorry I was shitty about-- about Katie. I was just mad about losing.”

Celeste nods once, then pats Jordan on the back to send her on her way. “Have a nice night, Jordan.”

“You too,” Jordan says, and there’s a deep blush on her cheeks as she walks back down the hallways. Celeste can’t tell if it’s from the beer or maybe something else.

\\_._/

If Jordan remembers any of their conversation the next day, she doesn’t mention it.

In fact, they barely talk to each other for the next month. The end of the semester kicks everyone’s ass in unique ways, and Celeste’s coping mechanism is to lock herself in her room for hours on end to work on practice problems and models and all of the other stuff she’s expected to understand for finals.

Jordan stops by the house less than usual, which Celeste hopes is a sign that she’s off studying instead of procrastinating, but that might be a little too optimistic.

Somehow, though, they all make it through exams and have one blissful, school-free weekend before everyone in the house heads home for the summer. Celeste spends that Saturday taking a long, relaxing bath and treating herself with a ridiculous amount of skin and haircare products.  
She’s interrupted around noon by the knob of the bathroom door shaking for a second before Courtney strides into the room. The lock doesn’t work; Courtney knows this.

Celeste sinks down under the surface of the bubbly water, although there’s really no need for modesty around a teammate who’s seen her naked more times than she can count. “Courtney!” she says. “I’m in the middle of a bath.”

“Yeah, well, hurry it up. Family meeting in ten minutes.”

“I need to dry my hair,” Celeste says.

“Fine, fifteen. Living room.”

Celeste nods and Courtney finally, thank god, leaves her alone. She cuts her bath short and dries off before heading back to her room to slip into a pair of joggers and a tank top.

When she heads downstairs all of the residents of the house, plus Jordan, are sat around and working their way through a plate of cookies Tyler had brought over earlier in the day. Celeste picks one up. It’s pretty good, for an oatmeal cookie.

“Why are we having a meeting?” she asks, sitting down on the arm of the chair that Jordan is sprawled in. Jordan, who’s wearing knee-length athletic shorts, a backwards ballcap, and worst of all, a muscle tank. Celeste is used to seeing her in hoodies and jerseys. Seeing the results of constant gym time in Jordan’s thick biceps? It’s kind of a shock to the system that Celeste doesn’t even want to think about.

“We’re going to be re-arranging some stuff in the house next year,” says Courtney.

“What do you mean? None of you are moving out, right?” Celeste asks.

“Oh, god no,” Sierra says, reaching for another cookie. “You couldn’t pay me to move out of here. We’re just getting rid of the gear room.”

The gear room, or more accurately, the extra crap room, is a small room on the first floor that Celeste is pretty sure was meant to be an office or a study or something of that sort. The team has definitely been using it to store equipment as long as she’s been at Samwell. They play hockey. They have a lot of shit. “We need the gear room,” Celeste insists.

“See, the thing is, we have a shed,” Anisa says.

Celeste glances out the living room window into the backyard to confirm that they’re talking about the same shed. “The shed is a mess.” It’s full of garbage and a very, very old lawn mower, and half of the roof is caving in.

“Yes, it is,” says Courtney. “But I was thinking that we might as well use it or just knock it down. So I told Jordan she could move into the gear room on the condition that she fixes up the shed.”

“I’m, like, pretty decent at home improvement,” Jordan says.

Celeste sits back, processing this for a second. Jordan is going to be living under the same roof as her next year. Granted, she’s already in the house more often than any of the other team members who don’t live there, but _still._

Jesus. She and Jordan are going to get into a fight over the chore chart and kill each other.

Somehow, though, what seems most important to point out isn’t that. It’s, “Jordan, I saw you trip on your own foot and fall into a recycling bin the other day. Can we really trust you with a hammer?”

This garners laughs from everyone, and Celeste smiles while Jordan sputters through a defensive explanation of why she’s qualified for the job. The smile turns into an unhindered grin when Jordan gives up halfway through her spiel to giggle at her own clumsiness.

Okay, fine. Maybe it won’t be so bad.

\\_._/

Celeste finds out she’s been re-elected captain the next day, sitting out in the backyard and watching, yes, hockey videos on Youtube. So what-- she likes cool goal compilations. It’s not a crime.

The sliding door leading into the kitchen opens and Jordan pops her head out of the house. “Yo, have you seen?”

Celeste wishes her teammates would use full sentences and decent explanations. She really doesn’t do well with all of these questions. “Have I seen what?”

“Check your email,” Jordan says, stepping out onto the concrete block that serves as the step down to the ground, then walking over to Celeste and leaning against the tree she’s under.

Celeste opens a new tab and does just that. The newest unread email in her inbox is titled  **SWH Captaincy 2014-15:**

_Ladies,_

_I am pleased to announce the results of our election for the 2014-15 season position of captain. We had an excellent season and each and every one of you impressed me, but I think we all can admit that Celeste Lefebvre was a huge reason why we did so well, so I’m thrilled to tell you that, after a unanimous vote, she will be returning to the position next year._

_Have a fun summer (but keep up with your offseason workouts!),_

_Coach Lewis_

Celeste stares blankly at her screen, reading the email two, three, four times before she finally processes it.

She’s captain again. She didn’t lose it.

She was voted _unanimously_. By the teammates who not only heard her complain about Jordan all of fall semester, but then break down and attack her. Teammates who saw how well Courtney did at handling the entire thing.

Celeste lifts her head finally to say no, God no-- this is a mistake, give it to Courtney, when she sees Jordan looking down at her, hands in the pockets of her shorts, grinning at her.

Unanimous.

Even Jordan voted for her.

Celeste is kind of glad she’s sitting, because if she was any closer to Jordan, she’s not sure _what_ she’d try to do to wipe that smirk off her face.

Instead, she says, “You voted for me.”

Jordan doesn’t have to confirm it. She just says, “I gotta head out. Have a nice summer, Cap,” and heads back toward the house.

“Jordan!” Celeste yells as she gets to the door, using the same voice she does get the girls’ attention on the ice.

Jordan’s reaction is instantaneous, freezing and spinning to face Celeste. “Yes?”

“You too,” Celeste says.

Jordan’s smile falters for just a second, then comes back. She nods and steps inside.

The door slides shut behind her.

Celeste closes her laptop and sprawls onto her back to stare at the dappled bits of sky visible through the branches and leaves and wonders how the hell she’s going to make it through her senior year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley.
> 
> Ah! This chapter means we are officially past the halfway point for this fic! I hope that's as wild for you as it is for me. 
> 
> Up next: Year two begins! Does that mean a continuation of this tentative peace? We'll see!
> 
> As always I'm @hockeydyke on tumblr and I very much appreciate comments here! Thank you for reading!


	9. do you know what's worth fighting for

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophomore year starts and SWH sees some changes to its lineup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major apologies for the extra week wait between last chapter and this one. My parents visited town this weekend and work and school were both equally hellishly busy, so the chapter was postponed. Now that year 2 has started we're back to our regular posting schedule!
> 
> As usual, all credit goes to Ngozi for creating omgcp. I just do academic research on women's sports and then project my anger into fic about them.

The start of sophomore year is pretty chill. For one, Jordan gets a full two weeks of practicing and just hanging around the house before classes start, so she dedicates her time to three things: fixing the shed, bothering Celeste, and working out. 

 

Jordan has spent all summer working on the maintenance crew of the school where her dad works, thanks to some mostly harmless nepotism. Her job mainly consisted of mowing fields and putting new mulch down on the playground and gardens, but she also got to help the head groundskeeper do some repairs to the dugouts at the varsity baseball field, so she’s gotten some experience with building and fixing things and it definitely comes in handy while she’s working on the shed. 

 

The shed, in fact, is where Celeste finds her when she first gets back to Samwell two days after Jordan. Jordan is on the roof of the shed, straddling the peak while she tears off some nasty old shingles, blasting country music from an old radio she got secondhand at Goodwill.

 

It’s so loud that Jordan doesn’t even notice Celeste until the music cuts out. Jordan swears and grabs the nearest shingle piece to throw down at whoever’s stopped her music. She’s already pelted it when she realizes that it’s not Johanna or Ani, who are the only other ones who have moved back in so far.

 

“Ow,” Celeste says as the piece hits her shoulder.

 

“Aw, come on.” Jordan scoots closer to the front of the roof, grinning. “There’s no way that hurt.”

 

“Hurt my feelings,” says Celeste. “Are you-- oh my god, Jordan, don’t!”

 

It’s too late. Jordan has already slid to the front of the roof, let her legs hang off the front, and jumped down. She knows how to land-- knees bent and all-- but Celeste still flinches at the thud of her work boots making contact with the ground. 

 

Then she looks up and goes silent. 

Jordan waits in awkward silence for a few seconds, first looking right back at Celeste, then ducking her head to rub at a dirt stain on her jeans, not sure what to do under the weight of Celeste’s staring.

 

Finally, Celeste says, “You got tan.”

 

Jordan looks down at herself. She’s wearing ratty basketball shorts that were probably white at one point but now faded to a grimy gray and nothing but a sports bra on top, which makes the clean line between pale and darkly tanned skin an inch above her elbow all the more obvious. 

 

“You makin’ fun of my farmer’s tan?” Jordan asks, lifting her chin and leveling Celeste with a firm look. 

 

Celeste looks offended that Jordan would suggest this, then quickly regains composure and flashes her a smile. Have her teeth gotten more white, or did Jordan just forget how perfectly straight and clean they are? “Yes.”

 

Jordan laughs and prepares to give her a playful shove but stops at the last moment when she realizes that Celeste is holding two glasses. 

 

Celeste follows Jordan’s eyes. “Oh-- it’s hot out here. You should stay hydrated. Lemonade?”

 

“Hard lemonade?” Jordan asks, hopeful, probably putting on her best begging face, if she’s really being honest with herself. Celeste is twenty-one, after all. 

 

“Just lemonade,” Celeste says, handing her one of the glasses. “I did bring sangria for later.”

 

Jordan’s pout changes too a grin almost too quickly. “That’s perfect. I’m grilling dinner so we can have it with that out here.”

 

Celeste raises an eyebrow.  _ “You’re  _ grilling?” 

 

Jordan raises the hand not holding the glass in defeat. “Fine, Ani’s grilling and I’m pretending to help. Since none of you guys trust me around an open flame, apparently.”

 

“Correct. The shed is enough to worry about.” Celeste glances up at it and gives it an approving nod. “It looks nice.”

 

Something about that sends a warm flush through Jordan from her head to her toes. “Mostly I’ve just cleared all the junk out of it and put in shelves and fixed the one wall. Now I just have to do the roof.”

 

“Oh, great.” Celeste rolls her eyes but it’s playful, with the ghost of the smile edging in at the corners of her mouth. “Now I have to worry about my first line right winger falling off a roof and breaking her leg right before the season starts.”

 

“I’m not going to--” Jordan breaks off. “First line? I play third or fourth.”

 

Celeste once again raises an eyebrow. God. Jordan hates when she does that. It’s so distracting. “Ashley graduated. Anisa’s knee still isn’t in top shape. You know that puts you on the first, right?”

 

Well-- yes. That does make sense. Jordan had expected to move up to second. The last few months of their season last year had gone great for her-- in fact, she led the team in assists. Penalty minutes, too, but it was the assists, the ability to make space on the ice and actually use that for plays instead of just pushing other people around, that made her think that she might get moved up. 

 

But she hadn’t realized that Ani’s knee was that bad. It’d put her out for a few weeks in January, moving Jordan up to second line while Celeste was on the first. But then she’d gone to the doctor’s and gotten something or the other done and she played for the rest of the season. It’s a damn shame. This is Ani’s last season. 

 

“Fuck,” Jordan says, wiping at the sweat on her forehead. God, it’s hot. “Who with?”

 

Celeste shrugs. “I don’t know for sure. Lauren, I think. I suppose Emily at center.”

 

Emily was Jordan’s linemate for most of last year. She’s a good, reliable player.

 

She’s no Celeste Lefebvre, though.

 

Jordan sips at her lemonade. “Why not you?”

 

Celeste shrugs again. “Not ready for first line.”

 

Jordan’s blood runs hot again, this time not with some strange, pleasant feeling, but with the easily identifiable anger that she’s much more familiar with. She takes a deep breath, counts to three in her head, and finally delivers, fairly mildly, “You know, you’re never going to be ready unless you decide that you are.”

 

Celeste cocks her head. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

 

“Yes, it does.” Jordan isn’t going to push it, though. She has a roof to finish and this is a fight she’s too sweaty and tired to start. “I’ll see you at dinner,” she says, before draining her glass and handing it to Celeste so she can heave herself back up onto the roof.

 

Celeste doesn’t push it either. She just watches Jordan for a minute, silent, and Jordan tries her best to do the best damn roof de-shingling Celeste has ever seen. Instead of a compliment, though, it just earns her a nod before Celeste retreats inside and the glass door slides shut behind her.

 

Jordan reaches for the stained bandana she left on the roof and wipes at the sweat along her hairline again, then shakes her head. She’s known Celeste for a full year now and she just gets more and more confusing. Go figure.

 

\\_._/ 

 

Classes start and things are less fun, because Samwell apparently has this godawful tradition of making all sophomores meet with their advisors fall semester to make sure they’re on track for their majors. Problem is, Jordan doesn’t exactly know what it is she’s majoring in, so one day late September when she comes back from that meeting, she slams her door shut, chucks her backpack at the wall, and destroys her room.

 

See, Jordan has this bad habit. Maybe not a habit. More of a thing that she can’t seem to control that’s pretty easy to ignore. Like a lot of things (probably too many things) in her life, it involves anger, and the poor controlling of said anger.

 

Basically, on rare occasions, she’ll get worked up about something and it’ll build and build and build until she’s so full of rage that she blacks out.

 

Not blacking out as in passing out, but as in very briefly getting so angry that she breaks anything around her until she comes to her senses, almost frighteningly relaxed and in the middle of whatever it is she messed up. It never happens with people-- usually she just smashes a few things in her room and it makes her feel better and it’s fine. She’s learned not to keep delicate items or anything sharp out in the open. Really, it’s fine. She recognizes that it’s not the best way of coping, but it’s better than getting into fights, so.

 

Anyway, that’s where Celeste finds her an hour after Jordan gets home: sitting on the floor in the middle of her first-floor room in the house on top of one of her pillows, all of her sheets and blankets strewn around the room, mattress shoved against the far wall across from the bed. Jordan is sprawled out on her back, completely blissed out after her therapeutic round of messing up everything in her room, even though she can’t exactly remember doing any of it. She’s fairly certain it happened, though. The mattress and tipped bookshelf are pretty good evidence to prove it.

 

Celeste has a tendency of walking right into her housemate’s rooms without knocking, despite many, many occasions in the past that should have taught her a lesson (she does live with Courtney, self-proclaimed Queen of Hookups, after all). It’s similar to her bad habit of interrupting people mid-conversation to completely change the subject: she does realize that it’s rude, but only after the fact. 

 

Today, Jordan watches the door open and sees Celeste walk into the room, upside-down, because apparently Jordan is upside down, though she’s not quite sure why. 

 

“Hey, have you seen the ugly broom? Not the nice one, the one that--” she breaks off mid-sentence, having finally looked around the room, eyes settling on Jordan sprawled on the floor on her back and looking up at her, upside down. “Um. Are you okay?”

 

“Definitely not,” says Jordan, struggling against a sheet to sit up. “I made a mess.”

 

“Yeah. You also look kind of flushed.” Celeste steps right in front of Jordan’s face and stoops down. Jordan has a very good view of her Nikes. They’re neon orange and they clash awfully with Celeste’s Samwell red t-shirt. “Do you want me to take you to the Student Health Center?”

 

“Didn’t the Student Health Center try to give Aspirin to Johanna for her concussion last year instead of, like, actual medical treatment?” Jordan asks as she finally tosses of the sheet. “Anyway, I’m not sick.”

 

“Sounds like something someone feverish and delirious would say,” Celeste says, standing up again. 

 

Jordan reaches a hand out and toys with Celeste’s shoelace. “You can take my temperature if you want. I swear I’m not sick. I just, you know, took off all the sheets because I was pissed.”

 

“How are those connected?”

 

Jordan starts to untie the lace and Celeste jerks her foot away before she can. Jordan huffs. “Because it was either that or trying to add a window to my wall using only my fist? Hell, I don’t know. It just gives me something to throw.” 

 

She stands up, blood rushing to her head, but puts all of her concentration into not stumbling. That would only make Celeste even more concerned, and Jordan does  _ not  _ want her pity. 

 

Celeste watches Jordan shake off the sheet and heave the mattress partially back onto the bed frame before flopping onto it and sighing as she closes her eyes. A moment later Jordan feels the mattress dip under new weight. She opens her eyes to see Celeste perched next to her, delicately sat, legs crossed. 

 

“And what’s got you angry today?” she asks.

 

Jordan gives another huff, louder, exaggerated, as an answer, then adds, “Apparently I’m supposed to have  _ some  _ idea of what I want to major in by now. My advisor isn’t happy with me.”

 

Celeste raises an eyebrow and Jordan cringes. Of course Celeste wouldn’t understand this. She’s not just a good player, but also an amazing student, and on some very challenging engineering track that Jordan definitely does not understand. She’s expecting a lecture about how yes, Jordan, you dumbass, you should know by now, why are you wasting an education at  _ Samwell  _ to study nothing?

 

Instead, Celeste says, “What do you want to do?”

 

Which is honestly even worse. Like, really? Surely one college student should know that’s the worst possible question to ask another. Jordan rolls over so she’s face down on the mattress. “I want to punch the wall,” she mumbles into it.

 

“I can’t hear you.”

 

Jordan turns her head sideways. “I want to fucking punch the wall.”

 

“Okay, five years from now, I mean. What do you want to be doing then?”

 

Jordan thinks for a moment. “Punching more walls, in new places.” She’s not even looking at Celeste but she’s pretty sure she can feel the eye roll at that.

 

Then a giggle. “So you want to be a home renovation expert, eh?”

 

Jordan snorts. “Sure. Better than working in an office.”

 

“Fair. There has to be something you always wanted to do, like when you were a kid.”

 

Jordan sits up, well aware that her rolling and turning has messed up her hair. Nothing like a little bit of bed destroying to tempt her five thousand cowlicks up from where she’d tamed them this morning. “I just wanted to play hockey.”

 

Jordan’s been looking down at her hands, big and kind of dirty, oops, so she doesn’t realize that Celeste is staring at her for a long ten seconds until she looks up at her. 

 

They lock eyes, and Jordan thinks that she’s never seen Celeste look this sad-- not even when their season ended last year. She looks sad past the point of tears or frustration. Not pitying, but solemn.

 

“Jordan,” she finally says, “do you want to play pro?”

 

Jordan makes a face.

 

“You could, you know.”

 

Jordan doesn’t even want to think about the mess of feelings that Celeste saying that is illiciting. Instead, she just fists her hands, resisting the urge to punch the wall, back and as strong as ever. She wants to throw a fit even though she knows she’s being ridiculous, because playing for the CWHL is not what she imagined when she was a kid. She imagined big crowds and bigger stadiums, facing off center ice with Gretzky or Jagr or Crosby or  _ whoever _ . She imagined being one of her heroes. 

 

She knows she should be accepting it, but fucking dammit, she’s angry.

 

Finally, she says, “And what? Move to Canada and bum around on someone’s couch ‘cause I’m not getting paid and just getting depressed because nobody even fucking cares about the league I’m playing in?”

 

Celeste fixes her with a glare that softens after a few seconds. Wow. She’s losing her touch.

 

“What do you think?” she says. 

 

“What?”

 

Celeste stands up and picks up Jordan’s pillow off the ground. She throws it to Jordan. “Do you think I wanted to come to college?” 

 

“Um.” Celeste Lefebvre, star student, maybe the only person Jordan knows who actually does all her readings. “Yes?” 

 

“Everyone thinks they’re going to make it big when they’re a kid. Every little kid playing hockey wants to be Gretzky.If I could play pro and have that be that, then I wouldn’t be spending hours locked up doing homework every night. I’d just be playing hockey. That’s all I want to do.” She takes a deep breath, the kind Jordan recognizes as the same thing she does when she’s trying to clear her mind when she’s feeling too many things at once. “But we don’t get to be the fucking superstars. When we go pro, we’re not getting paid. We have to work twice as damn hard as any guy in the NHL because we have to work and play.”

 

“Your dad is rich,” Jordan says, not to be mean, but because it’s true.

 

“I’m not living off my dad’s money my whole life,” Celeste snaps, then breathes deep again. “Listen. You’re not playing in the NHL. I’m not playing in the NHL. But for the first time there  _ is  _ a professional league for us, and sure, no one knows about it yet. But they  _ will,  _ Jordan. God, they will.”

Jordan realizes she’s leaning toward Celeste, just a bit, drawn toward her like a magnet. She’s never heard her speak so passionately. If only her pep talks were this emotional. “You sure?” 

 

“Yes. But not until we actually grow the game instead of giving up because no one respects us right now.”

 

Well. Mark Jordan down as a convert, then, at least for the moment, because she couldn’t deny Celeste if she wanted to right now. “I take it you’re planning on playing for the CWHL next year, then?”

 

Somehow this is apparently the wrong thing to say, because Celeste bursts into what sounds like laughter. Jordan tilts her head at her, curious at why this is so funny. Then she realizes that the sound was not purely a laugh, but also a choked sob. 

 

Celeste is crying. Celeste is on her bed and crying. What? How did that happen?

 

“Uh-- you good?” Jordan asks, tentative.

 

“No. You know that’s never happening unless I get over-- the, the contact issue,” Celeste says, wiping at her nose with her bare arm and keeping her head ducked so Jordan can’t see her scrunched up face that well. 

 

God. Jordan would do anything she could to get Celeste to stop crying. This may be the worst thing she’s ever had to watch. Before she even really has time to think, she’s saying, “Fuck, Celeste. You could get over that right now if you wanted to.”

 

Celeste sniffles. “Please, Jordan. I’ve tried. It’s ingrained at this point. I’ve worked at it for-- what, four years now? And things have barely gotten better.”

 

“Well, you haven’t tried  _ everything. _ You definitely haven’t attended the Jordan Kelly School of Fighting.”

 

The line at least gets a small smile out of Celeste, so Jordan counts that as a success. 

 

“I’d rather not get on the NCAA’s bad side, thanks. I’ll leave that to you.”

 

Jordan reaches out and puts a hand on Celeste’s knee, then jerks back almost nearly as fast. Too close. “You don’t actually have to fight,” she says, quickly. “I’m just saying that if there’s anyone who can teach you to make your game a little bit more physical, it’s probably me.”

 

Celeste looks down to where Jordan’s hand was a moment ago and thinks for a moment. “Fine. I’ll practice with you.”

 

“Cool. Sunday work?” Jordan asks. Now that they don’t have mandatory hangout time, her Sundays are very free. Almost too free.

 

“Yeah. That sounds-- good.” Celeste stands quickly. “I should go ask Courtney about that broom.”

 

She heads to the doorway but pauses, then turns her head back. “Thank you, Jordan. Can you promise me two things?”

 

Jordan nods.

 

“One, make an appointment with your counselor to talk about how you messed up your room. Two, talk to some of the girls about their majors. Maybe that’ll give you some ideas. Good?”

 

“Good.” 

 

She leaves and Jordan immediately sprawls back out in bed and presses her face into her pillow, not sure why she’s smiling so hard.

 

\\_._/

 

Next Sunday finds them at Faber with a bucket of pucks and way too much anxious energy between them.

 

They arrived promptly at eight and took the ice just as Jack Zimmermann and Eric Bittle are leaving it. Celeste intercepts Jack with a playful shove and they play fight for a minute or two before launching into some hardcore Quebecois that Jordan is fairly certain contains gossip about her. She and Eric try to decipher it to no avail and end up chatting about classes. It’s nice to know that she’s not the only sophomore with absolutely no career aspirations at all. 

 

Their conversation is cut short when they realize that Celeste and Jack have gone silent, and Jordan looks up to see Jack watching Eric, wide-eyed, softer than she’s ever seen him look. 

 

Eric follows Jordan’s gaze and breaks into a smile. “Oh, I get it, mister. You want your coffee now.”

 

“I don’t need coffee.”

 

“Yes, you do. Come on, let’s go.” Eric flashes Jordan a smile and leaves with Jack, leaving Jordan standing there, a little bewildered.

 

Huh. She doesn’t get them.

 

By the time she’s cleared her head and picked up her stick Celeste has already skated out onto the ice. They warm up, take a few laps, and launch into their practice, which is where they are now.

 

Jordan doesn’t have a very refined methodology with this. Or any methods at all, really. Really, she just has a bucket of pucks, her stick, and a pretty good ability to provoke Celeste, who’s gripping her stick like her life depends on it. Hell, Jordan even thinks she’s shaking. It’s like--

 

It’s like, Jordan realizes, that she doesn’t even feel like she belongs out there on the ice. 

 

Well. And if that’s a feeling Jordan hasn’t dealt with every single team she’s ever played on. She dumps out the bucket. “Get a puck,” she says.

 

Celeste does and Jordan darts forward to fish it away from her. “Mine now.” She shoots it to the far corner of the ice. “Get another one.”

 

Celeste does and this time she’s lighter on her feet, dodging Jordan’s first attempt to get possession and faking her out the second time. Jordan doesn’t mind playing dirty, though. As soon as she shoulders Celeste she gets the puck.

 

“Again,” she says.

 

Celeste frowns. “Jordan.”

 

“Again!” 

 

They do it again. Pucks pile up around the far side of the ice. Maybe ten pucks in Jordan starts talking. 

 

“Do you even want it, Celeste? My puck,” she says, drawing another one away and shooting it. 

 

Celeste gets another. “Christ. Do you want it or not?”

 

When Jordan drives her elbow into Celeste’s shoulder and nearly knocks her off her feet, she hears an audible growl from Celeste. “Yeah, that’s fucking right,” Jordan says. “Be hungry for it. It’s yours.”

 

Still, Jordan takes away puck after puck. Celeste is much, much faster than her, much better at predicting her movement, but she dodges away from the slightest, and it’s her downfall every time. 

 

“My ice, Celeste. Not yours. Mine,” Jordan says. Another puck. “Again, if you even want to bother. What kind of coward doesn’t even want to keep her damn puck by--” 

Celeste lets out a deep, primal yell and skates forward, driving her shoulder against Jordan’s chest and knocking her right on her ass. Her helmet, unbuckled, falls off to the ice with a loud clunk.

 

Jordan sits there for a moment, shocked. 

 

“My fucking puck,” Celeste says, and shoots it to the other side of the ice. 

 

Jordan breaks out into a grin. “That’s right. Your puck.” She breathes for a moment, then stands up and grabs her helmet. “Again.”

 

Sure, it’s just one small thing in a contained practice with someone Celeste is already comfortable with, but damn, if that isn’t progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 21 Guns by Green Day which I listened to on repeat for three hours while writing this chapter.
> 
> Ah, professional women's sport, where we're forced to constantly battle the sheer rage and not gaining equal respect but also forced to persevere through subpar conditions in hopes of future change. #growthegame. 
> 
> Up next: a new pair of linemates takes SWH by storm, and if that isn't fun enough, apparently there's a party to end all parties coming up soon.
> 
> As always, I'm @hockeydyke on tumblr, and @sydneyharper98 on twitter, if you're into that! Please comment if you have a moment!


	10. not the way that friends behave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SWH's 2014-15 first line is kind of big deal. Have you seen their no-look one-timer? They're slaying Harvard, BC, Cornell, trolls, dragons-- all that good stuff. Looks like there are some developments in their personal lives, as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rivs played Team Russia tonight! Russia won 3-2, but still super cool! 
> 
> Credit goes to Ngozi for creating OMGCP.

September ends and the NCAA season begins with Jordan on the first line, just as Celeste knew would happen. Bad ice etiquette or not, Jordan is the team’s most capable right wing right now, if not their best forward overall. 

 

Celeste plays second line as usual. She gets the chance to play games with several of their rookies and she’s very pleased with them so far. Jordan has been teasing her about one of them-- Hannah, left wing from Long Island, great hands-- who’s been absolutely hanging off Celeste’s every word and following her like a puppy. 

 

“Seriously, you can take advantage of that,” Jordan says during one of their Sunday practices. “Make her do all your laundry and use that freshman meal plan to your advantage.”

 

Celeste attempts to shoulder her into the boards again and is woefully unsuccessful. “Absolutely not.”

 

“C’mon.” Jordan yelps as she slips and takes a tumble. Celeste throws her hands up in celebration even though it wasn’t Celeste’s check but rather Jordan’s own clumsiness that knocked her down. Once on the ground Jordan rolls onto her back to look up at Celeste. “She has a crush on you, man. You can use that.”

 

“She doesn’t--” Celeste leans down to help Jordan up, but roughly. “That would be even worse and very inappropriate. I’m in a position of leadership. I can’t use that to be mean to rookies.”

 

Jordan shrugs. Celeste is pretty sure she was joking in the first place, but she can never tell. “Your loss. I’m definitely going to get dining hall swipes from her, though.”

 

“We have a kitchen.”

 

“Yeah, and Commons has unlimited chocolate milk. We have very limited milk at  _ la Maison _ .”

 

Celeste rolls her eyes. Jordan is ridiculous. “Fine, use Hannah’s swipes. Just don’t lead her on.”

 

“Lead her on? I would never. She’s only got eyes for you, anyway.”

 

Celeste doesn’t quite believe this. If it’s true-- well, like she said, she’s in a position of leadership over Hannah. It would be inappropriate to make a move. Celeste’s not a relationships kind of girl, anyway. “I don’t want to talk about this. We should finish up, anyway. You have your meeting.”

 

Jordan, thank god, doesn’t press the issue. “I don’t want to go.”

 

“I’m making you. It’ll be fun.”

 

Jordan laughs. “I haven’t actually been to a career info meeting before, but I’m pretty sure that nobody would describe them as  _ fun.” _

 

“Fine. It’ll be informative. Interesting. Best case scenario, you find out you really want to go into education. Worst case, you sleep through this one and go to a different one next week.”

 

Jordan grins and grabs for Celeste’s arm, making a big show of dragging her off the ice. “Well, if I get to take a nap, then…” 

 

Celeste wrestles with her for a minute and when they finally make it to the locker room and get changed. She keeps her eyes down while she changes like always, but when Jordan’s all done and Celeste is tugging her hoodie on, Jordan giggles. Celeste lifts her eyes to see Jordan mid-selfie with herself in the background, so of course she leaps forward to throw her arms around Jordan and make the photo blurry. 

 

It’s completely related, but she finds herself thinking,  _ I’m glad Hannah doesn’t have a crush on Jordan.  _

 

Weird. 

 

\\_._/

 

Celeste and Jordan play their first game as linemates the weekend before Thanksgiving break.

Before that can happen, though, Celeste argues with Coach Lewis for about an hour, up from when they arrive at the rink in Boston where they’re playing Northeastern right up to puck drop. 

 

“Are you sure?” she says, maybe a hundred times. 

 

This is wrong. This is not routine. 

 

Sure, she’s  _ practiced _ on a line with Jordan and Lauren, but that’s a lot different from actually playing. Hell, Celeste is probably the best living example of how performance in games can be very, very different from in practices. Sure, they can execute drills smoothly. That doesn’t mean that playing Celeste on the first line is a good idea. 

 

They’re on the bench when Coach Lewis sets his hand on her shoulder. “Celeste. Take a deep breath. You’re ready.” 

 

“I’m not ready,” Celeste says. 

 

And then she has to go out for puck drop. It’s time. No getting out of this now. They skate out to take their places for faceoff, but before they get quite there, Jordan bumps her shoulder.

 

“Our puck,” Jordan reminds her. 

 

Celeste stops skating for a moment, just drifting. A split second. She watches Jordan and Lauren skate past her and take their places. 

 

Yeah. 

 

Theirs. 

 

The game starts and they have a very rough first period. Northeastern scores on them once and Celeste takes full responsibility for that one-- she had the opportunity to intercept the player and she hesitated instead of going in for the puck. Her fault. 

 

More than that, the whole line clumsy. They’re not making connections as much as they should be on their passes and their plays are messy. Celeste and Lauren are doing okay, doing fine enough that she can comfortably blame the mistakes on this being their first time playing together. 

 

Jordan, on the other hand? She’s all over the place. Celeste can’t predict where she’s going  _ at all.  _ They miss the most basic passes to each other because Celeste thinks she knows where Jordan is heading and Jordan completely surprises her. They end the period just after Northeastern scores again, cussing each other out as they head for the bench. 

 

After Coach Lewis gives them input in the locker room (he’s not thrilled, to no one’s surprise) Jordan storms over and gives Celeste a small shove. 

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Celeste sees Courtney tense up, ready to intervene. No need, though. This is how Jordan communicates. This is how Jordan  _ and  _ Celeste communicate, actually. 

 

Celeste pushes her back, same amount of force. “I don’t know where you’re going.”

 

“I go where you need me,” Jordan says. 

 

“It’s not where I need you if I can’t tell where you’re going!”

 

“Just pass to where you want me to be, okay? It might not look like I’m going there but I’ll get there.”

 

“And how do you know where I want you?”

 

Jordan rolls her eyes. “I think I’ve practiced with you more than anyone else on this team. I know how to play around you. You’re the star,  _ mon capitaine.  _ You gotta trust me.”

 

Celeste throws her head back and huffs. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Jordan, she just-- well.

 

Fine, maybe she doesn’t trust Jordan. But does she really trust any of her teammates? She’ll admit it: she’s spent almost twenty years dedicating her life to hockey-- watching tape, reading about plays, training, training, training. She knows hockey more than anyone she’s ever played with, and, well, that may be the issue. Why would she trust anyone above herself when she knows best?

 

Celeste knows hockey is a team sport. Obviously. But she guesses she’s never actually played like it.

 

“Fine, we’ll try it again,” Celeste says, finally.

 

“Of course we will.” Jordan pats her shoulder and the smile on her face as she turns to leave makes her look a lot happier than anyone should when they’re down 2-0, Celeste thinks.

 

The second period starts and Celeste tries  _ trusting  _ Jordan. Like trust is a switch that she can turn on and off, god. Passing to where she wants Jordan to go is a lot more doable so she starts off by trying that. And though she hates to admit it, Celeste has to say that yes, that’s helping a little bit. Jordan does have a pretty good sense of where she wants her to be. Not perfect, but a lot better than Celeste expected. 

 

Ten minutes into the period, Sierra gets the puck from a deflection and sends it to Courtney, who in turn gets it to Jordan. 

 

“Go, go, go!” Jordan says, which, though standard mid-game talk, is not very helpful. Somehow, Celeste knows what she means and hustles to keep up with her. Celeste may be faster but Jordan has definitely gotten more agile, so they keep pace well.

 

It’s funny. She’s so used to practicing with Jordan, messing around with her, that this barely feels like a game. Jordan passes. She shoots.

 

She scores.

 

She’s almost knocked over by the force of Jordan crashing into her a moment later, throwing her arms around Celeste’s torso and bumping their helmets together and shouting incoherently. Celeste struggles to stay on her feet but can’t help but smile at Jordan’s excitement. 

 

The game’s not over yet, though. They still have a one-goal deficit and a period and a half to go. 

 

They win 5-2. Celeste gets the first hat trick of her college career. 

 

Jordan-- Jordan Kelly, of all people-- gets Celeste. Lauren gets Jordan, and through that, gets Celeste. 

 

Needless to say, it looks like this line is here to stay. 

 

\\_._/

 

SWH keeps winning. Jordan and Celeste practice together more than over, both surprised but intrigued by their on-ice chemistry. Celeste still shies away from contact on the ice, but nine times out of ten, Jordan is there and ready to dive in and make up for Celeste losing opportunities. They’re by no means perfect, but the difference in Celeste’s play is notable enough that she and Jordan get interviewed by the  _ Daily  _ and end up on the front page. Take that, every other Samwell sports team. 

 

They finish up their last game of the semester ranked below only Clarkson and Minnesota and everyone is riding happy on their streak of wins. 

 

Celeste might be the most gleeful out of all of them. To finally be making progress after years of struggling with the one thing she values? That’s the best fucking feeling on earth. 

 

She’s feeling so good that when Jordan tells her that she and some of the others on the team are going to a party at the men’s hockey house, she shrugs and says sure, why not, even though she hasn’t been to a party outside of SWH’s house since freshman year. She went to a few with Jack back then, but after freshman year when Jack got a spot in the Haus he stopped feeling the need to go to them to impress the team, and after that it didn’t seem worth it for her to go. Parties aren’t really her thing, so she avoids going to them unless she has another non-partier with her to be mostly sober and chat.

 

She has a feeling that none of the people she’s going with will be mostly sober at all, but since they don’t have any games for another three weeks it’ll probably be fine to let loose, just a little bit.

 

Problem is, they mean to head over the the Haus around nine, but don’t actually make it there until eleven. First Lauren is late coming to the house from her end-of-semester DECA meeting, and then Tyler is late from his slam poetry reading, and Jordan is actually there the whole time but she somehow procrastinates showering and getting dressed until Lauren and Tyler are there and all ready to go. Celeste spends the whole time standing outside the bathroom door 

 

Long story short, the party is already going strong when the four of them get there, abuzz with an excitement that Celeste hasn’t ever seen before. They receive cups of some sort of juice from Jack’s teammate Shitty on the porch and head inside.

 

Jordan steps in front of them once they enter and waves her hands at the scene before them. “Rans and Holster,” she says-- the two hockey guys she goes to the gym with-- “are calling it Epikegster.”

 

“It’s glorious,” Tyler says.

 

Lauren is more skeptical. “It’s very hot.”

 

Celeste just stands there and takes it all in.

 

The party is abuzz with an excitement that Celeste hasn’t ever seen before-- not even at Halloweekend 2011, when even Jack did a kegstand. People are dancing and shouting and the music is blasting loud enough that Celeste drains her cup as quickly as possible in anticipation of the headache she’s going to get. That’s all pretty standard. The strangeness of it comes from the reckless energy of the room, like a hundred people all riding high. Most of them are, of course, but--

 

Hell. Celeste can’t explain it. It’s just  _ weird. _

 

“Yo. Yo, Celeste. Come play pong,” Jordan says, hand on Celeste’s arm. 

 

“I’ve never played,” says Celeste. “I don’t know how good a partner I’ll be.”

 

“Oh, please. You’re the most competitive person I know. You’ll do fine.”

 

Jordan drags her over and of course she’s right. They absolutely dominate at pong. They don’t beat Lardo, of course-- she’s the master-- but they manage to beat pairs from men’s lacrosse, women’s rugby,  _ and  _ co-ed ultimate frisbee.

 

After a particularly close game against said frisbee players Celeste finally says no to another game. “I need to get some water. You too.”

 

Jordan rolls her eyes but comes along as Celeste heads for the kitchen. Celeste can feel her presence right on her heels. She can’t see her but she just knows. It’s like being on the ice-- she’s always right there.

 

The kitchen is a lot cleaner than Celeste remembers. It might even be safe to eat off the table or counters, once all the solo cups and beer cans are cleaned off of them. Celeste rummages around the cabinets until she finds a plastic cup advertising Samwell A Capella that seems clean and fills it with water. 

 

“Sip,” she says, holding out the cup to Jordan without looking, until Jordan doesn’t take it. When she glances up she sees it’s because Jordan has grabbed another beer can and is mid-gulp.

 

Celeste rolls her eyes, but doesn’t stop her. Jordan’s tipsy, but not drunk. Celeste can wait a little bit before she has to worry about getting her to drink water. 

 

“I need to sit here for a minute,” says Celeste, pulling out one of the chairs at the table and settling in. “My ears need a break from the music.”

 

“That’s cool,” Jordan says, sitting in the chair next to her and scooting it closer. She sets down the can on the table between them. “We can wait. Do you want to go outside to cool off?”

 

“No, this is fine for now.” Celeste eyes the can. Another sip really won’t hurt. She reaches for it. 

 

Jordan reaches too, and their hands meet in the middle on the can, Jordan’s layered over Celeste’s. 

 

“Oh. Sorry,” Jordan says, leaning forward. 

 

Celeste leans in too and somewhere between  _ leaving room for Jesus  _ and making contact with Jordan, every single alarm and safeguard in her head starts screaming at her. 

 

Oh. 

 

Oh, shit. 

 

She pulls her hand away and jerks backward, startling Jordan into flinching.

 

“I didn’t,” Celeste starts. She stands. “I don’t--” She can’t do this. She can’t take advantage of Jordan, who’s not just her teammate, but younger and also doing so well with her this season, so she can’t mess that up and also what if Jordan doesn’t feel--

 

“No, I get it,” Jordan says, tone biting. “Whatever.”

 

Jordan stands, a little shaky on her feet but not too bad, and her eyes lock on something behind Celeste. The solo cup drops from her hand and crashes to the floor and the warm, sticky beer sprays Celeste’s legs. 

 

“Kenny?” Jordan asks, voice almost hoarse in her surprise. “What are you doing here?”

 

"Jordan?"

 

Celeste spins on her heels. Oh, god. "How do you know Kent Parson?" she asks Jordan.

 

Jordan can't even tear her eyes away from Kent. "He's my cousin."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from From Afar by Vance Joy. "She got darling hazel eyes?" Definitely about Jordan.
> 
> How do we feel about this... interesting development between Jordan and Celeste? Feel free to comment to let me know!
> 
> Up next: a trip down memory lane.
> 
> As always, I'm @hockeydyke on tumblr. Come by for some quality hockey blogging.


	11. i think you're changing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Growing up in the Kelly-Parson family: a story in flashbacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy oh boy. This is a long one. Half of it has been written since I started this story and the rest has been added during my writing frenzy this weekend. Warnings for this one include awful parenting and some degree of child neglect to the needs of a child with emotional development issues, as well as some subtle homophobia. Read with caution. 
> 
> As always, credit for OMGCP goes to Ngozi.

Here’s how the story goes:

Kent Parson grows up with his caring, supportive family in a small town nestled north of the Finger Lakes, a half hour drive outside of Rochester, New York. They encourage his hockey talent from a young age, and are thrilled when he has the opportunity to play in the Q. Even though he rarely has time to visit home once he’s drafted to Vegas, he remains close with his mother and extended family. They are proud of him and everyone loves each other.

 

Except, the thing is, it’s nothing like that.

 

As far as Jordan can remember, it goes like this:

 

It all starts when she's seven years old and her cousin Kenny becomes an altar server at St. Mary’s. Kenny is eleven and kind of the coolest person Jordan knows. He teaches her swear words and he’s always down to play shinny with her on the big pond out behind Jordan’s house.

 

Not on Sundays, though. On Sundays the entire family goes to mass before heading to Grandma and Grandpa Kelly’s house, just outside of the village, to have lunch together. It is very much a tradition, and even Uncle Mikey who lives in the city drives out to make it.

 

This Sunday is especially important because Kenny’s been going to special classes for a month, which is basically an eternity in Jordan’s opinion, so he can be an altar server.

 

When he walks up the aisle with Father John and Deacon Simon, Jordan straight up cackles. Her mother shushes her and she claps a hand over her own mouth to keep from laughing again.

 

“Mommy. Kenny looks like Luke Skywalker.”

 

He really does in the long white robes, but apparently her mom doesn’t find this nearly as funny as she does, because she shushes Jordan again and taps the page that the hymn book is open to to remind her that she’s supposed to be singing. Oh, right. Jordan decides that she’ll just tell Kenny her revelation later, no big deal.

 

The procession takes their place at the front of the church and mass begins, Kenny mostly doing his job without a hitch other than when he gets a free moment and stands on his tip-toes (he’s always been small) to see over the crowd to the tenth row of pews where the Kelly family always sits. Jordan waves at him but he doesn’t even seem to see her-- he’s just frowning.

 

Within a few minutes, Jordan is tugging on her mother’s sleeve to get her attention again. “Hey, mommy?”

 

“Jordan. You need to be quiet.”

 

Jordan scowls and sticks out her lower lip. Her mom ignores her until she yanks on her sleeve again. “Why is Kenny crying?”

 

“What?”

 

Heather Kelly looks up and sure enough, Kent Parson is standing at the front of the church, in front of the entire congregation, with two tracks of tears streaming down his face while he silently cries. Father John hasn’t noticed, but Jordan definitely has.

 

Heather makes a face that Jordan doesn’t understand yet. Later she’ll piece together what the thin lips and furrowed brow mean, after years of getting into plenty of shenanigans that prompt that face. Years later she’ll look into mirrors and be almost frightened by how much she looks like her mother when she makes that face. For now she’s seven years old and her mother knows a lot more about their family than Jordan does.

 

“Mommy?” Jordan fiddles with her mother’s watch. Her mother takes it off sometimes and gives it to her to put on her thin list because she gets fidgety during mass.

 

“Just a minute, Jordan,” she says, then leans over Jordan’s sisters to whisper in her dad’s ear.

 

Her dad, in turn, whispers something to Kenny’s mom, Aunt Laura. Aunt Laura sits there, stone-faced, like she hasn’t heard, and her dad turns back toward them and shrugs.

 

Eventually Kenny stops crying and Jordan is distracted from the hushed whispers and pointed looks of everyone in the pews surrounding them because she’s very busy quietly tearing out one of the pages from the hymnals to stuff in the pocket of her corduroys because there’s a picture of Joan of Arc on it and she looks pretty.

 

Jordan forgets about the whole thing until church is over and the parishioners are ushered into the big room next to the chapel, where church mothers and grandmothers are serving coffee and baked goods. They wait for Kenny for ages, it feels like.

 

When he strides in he looks even smaller than usual, hair mussed up and sticking in every which direction from when he’d wrestled off his robe.

 

“Kenny!” Jordan drops the cookie she was about to steal from her sister Morgan’s plate and runs up to him. “Kenny, did Father John--”

 

Kenny ignores her, doesn’t quite push her but definitely brushes past her without a care to how it forces her to take a step back. He walks right past their family and out the door into the parking lot, hands stuffed in his pockets, eyes downcast.

 

“What the hell,” Jordan says. A few old church ladies hmph disapprovingly and Heather shushes her. Whatever. She’s only in second grade but she knows they don’t like her already.

 

Within a minute the family has abandoned the cookie table and all of them are following Kenny outside, where Laura has caught up to him and caught him by the arm. He tears it away from her and Jordan can see wet, angry tears forming in her eyes. “No!” he’s saying. “No, I want to go home!”

 

Jordan can’t hear the first thing Laura says to him, hushed and furious, but a second later she’s close enough to hear her shush him and tell him that he made a scene and he can’t do that.

 

Kenny is silent for a second. He sniffs. Then he takes a deep breath and screams, “Where’s Dad?!”

 

Laura doesn’t answer him, so he screams again, even louder this time. Louder than Tommy Caggiano screamed when he broke his arm when he and Jordan were playing the floor is lava on the playground last month. “Where’s Dad? Where is he?” He screams himself hoarse, not stopping even when Laura gets another grip on his arm and drags him to their minivan.

 

Even after the door shuts, Jordan can hear Kent screaming. She doesn’t understand why he’s so upset. Uncle Victor barely comes to anything, anyway. Jordan tells her dad as much as they walk to their car, huffing, angry. Uncle Victor is annoying.

 

Tom shushes her. “Uncle Victor and Aunt Laura are going through a rough patch right now,” he says while he makes sure she’s buckled into the booster seat that she absolutely hates.

 

Jordan crosses her arms and sighs. She hates church days. They’re always awful.

 

This one doesn’t get any better. Instead of playing cops and robbers with Jordan and her sisters, Kent spends the entire time at their grandparents out in the backyard on the tire swing, crying. It’s super lame. Kenny never cries. Jordan tries to help, first by letting Grandma’s yappy cocker spaniel out into the yard so Kent has some company, and then by getting up from the table and opening the window so she can throw an applesauce cup to Kenny. He flinches when it hits the ground a few feet away from himself, but doesn’t go to get it.

 

Heather takes hold of the back of Jordan’s t-shirt and pulls her back from the window. “Let's give Kenny some space, okay?”

 

Jordan frowns. She thinks Kenny wants someone to be with him-- he always wants someone to be with him, ‘cause he talks so much because he wants people to listen, but she doesn't know how to tell her mom this. She’s tried before. They went over this just last week-- Kent was grumpy because his dad forgot to bring him to his Cub Scout meeting. Heather said that Jordan should leave Kent alone, so she snuck away and gave him a cool bug she caught but it didn't help that much.

 

She used to be really good at helping, but she isn’t anymore. Kenny’s always grumpy, which sucks because he’s kind of her best friend and she hates when people are grumpy. She’s not sure what changed.

 

\\_._/

 

It goes like this:

 

Uncle Victor doesn’t come back after that.

 

Aunt Laura has to drag Kent kicking and screaming to church and he stands during mass with a deep scowl every Sunday. When he’s not in school or at Boy Scouts he’s either at practice with his travel hockey team or else skating out on the pond behind Jordan’s house.

 

The winter passes, then the summer. Jordan starts third grade and Kent starts seventh. He’s the kind of kid everyone hates or loves. There’s always a horde of girls around him-- he’s middle school suave, just learning how to dress himself and do his hair and still enough of a class clown that everyone adores him.

 

When that winter starts he still bikes down the road to Jordan’s house to skate nearly every afternoon. She usually goes out to join him and if it’s not too cold they can spend hours out there together on the ice, taking turns scoring on each other, Kent going easy on her until she throws her stick at him and tells him to try harder.

 

“Damn, Jordan! I swear, you and me are gonna be in the NHL someday,” he says whenever she gets one in past him. He’s not that good a goalie, but he’s right to be impressed-- Jordan’s good and getting better every day. She’s good enough that all the kids in her class hate it when they play floor hockey in P.E. because she kicks their asses and isn’t afraid to brag about it.

 

She and Kenny are gonna play together someday-- not just in her backyard, but center ice in some stadium in Buffalo or New York or Pittsburgh or Edmonton or-- really, it doesn’t matter where. She and Kent are gonna make it.

 

\\_._/

 

It goes like this:

 

Kent starts high school and what was cute and silly when he was younger is no longer something that his teachers and classmates are willing to put up with. He changes accordingly.

 

It seems like it happens overnight: one day he’s baby-faced Kenny, small for his age with big bright eyes and hair that sticks in every direction, who names all of Jordan’s barn cats and cries when one of the chickens gets killed by a weasel, and then the next day he’s taller and stronger and meaner and everyone calls him _Parse._

 

Parse stops coming to family dinner on Sundays. Parse leaves Friday-night football games riding in the bed of one of the boy’s trucks with his arms slung around two of the cheerleaders while they drive off to go get drunk in someone’s barn. Parse gets into fights that get him sent to the principal’s office almost as much as Jordan does.

 

Parse plays hockey with Jordan but it’s not fun anymore. He doesn’t laugh when he trips over his feet or when he misses a shot. Instead he slams his stick down on the ice and swears at himself, over and over for hours. He sounds just like his dad used to when the Bills lost and he’d spend hours screaming at the TV.

 

Jordan watches him. Jordan learns.

 

\\_._/

 

It goes like this:

 

Kenny gets a chance to play in the QHL and packs up his bags to go to the draft. He leaves home-- leaves New York-- for Rimouski and texts Jordan only on rare occasions. She doesn't see him at Christmas that year because he stays up in Montreal to celebrate Chanukah with the _Zimmermanns,_ because apparently he’s tight with Jack Zimmermann now. Jack Zimmermann! They used to spend hours watching videos of Bad Bob that Jordan’s dad saved on VHS tapes in the 90s. They’d stand in front of the TV and play fight, trying to imitate Bob’s fighting moves. Jordan can’t believe it. She wants to play in the Q too.

 

A few days after Christmas he calls the home phone and asks to talk to her. Jordan is thrilled and spends three hours on the phone with him, sprawled on her bed and telling her everything she can think to get him caught up with everything that he’s missing. It’s awful quiet at school without Kenny around, so Jordan has to cause extra trouble to make up for it. Kenny laughs when she tells him that, and then she asks him about Jack Zimmermann, and she swears she can hear the smile in his voice while he talks about _Zimms._

 

“I don’t even understand it, Jordan. I’ve never met anyone like him.”

 

“He’s that good?” Jordan asks, talking about hockey.

 

“Yeah. That good,” says Kent, but she gets the feeling, somehow, that it’s not hockey he's referring to.

 

\\_._/

 

It goes like this:

 

Jordan and Mr. Kelly drive up north to see one of his games. He introduces them to Jack. He’s nothing like what Jordan imagined. Kent described him as if he’s the best of friends, the funniest bro to be around, a loyal, fun guy. Jordan imagines Jack as a better version of the guys Kent used to hang with his last few years of high school.

 

Jack isn’t anything like that. He’s glum, quiet, barely meets Tom and Jordan’s eyes when they’re introduced. Kent promised Jordan that she can skate with them after everyone clears out of the rink, and she thought Jack would join them, but he turns to speak quietly to Kent for a minute and leaves.

 

Jordan doesn’t like him. She especially doesn’t like how Kent stares at him like he hung the fucking moon. She knows how Kent is. They’ve never talked about it, but she knows him better than anyone, maybe. There’s a way he looks at boys and then looks away, furtively, and closes his eyes and frowns like he’s done something wrong, that nobody else seems to pick up on. Hell, the only reason she notices is because she knows she does the same thing with girls.

 

They’re pretty similar, her and Kent.

 

\\_._/

It goes like this:

 

When Kent is home that summer Jordan barely sees him. He doesn't train with her-- he either practices at home or spends his time getting drunk with kids a few years older than him. He has a reputation and sometimes Jordan can’t even tell which rumors are true and which are total bullshit.

 

Jordan is a preteen at this point. She's constantly filled with anger she doesn't know what to do with. She hates Kenny. She wants him to come back. She misses having someone who understands how anger controls her. Fuck hockey for taking him away from her.

 

\\_._/

 

It goes like this:

 

Something weird called puberty happens and the girls that play on Jordan’s travel teams drop out, one by one, until it’s only her and the goalie left. Michaela Harrison. Michaela lives one town over and when they start high school their JV teams play each other with a confident decades-old rivalry that’s mostly show and no real animosity.

 

Really, no animosity. Jordan figures that out when she kisses Michaela in a bathroom at her captain’s house after one of those games together and Michaela kisses back, too much tongue and tasting like the two beers she’s had. They’re both tipsy-- the first time Jordan’s ever drank anything.

 

The next day Jordan texts Michaela and she doesn’t text back. In fact, they stop talking altogether. Jordan did something really, really wrong, she supposes. She feels awful on the ice for weeks afterward, clumsy and inefficient frustrated. She takes it out on her teammates, getting extra rough with them during practice. If she can’t prove she’s just as good as them by playing better, then she can at least hit better than anyone else.

 

She vows never to get mixed up with girls again. It messes with her game. And she doesn’t. She doesn’t kiss them. She doesn’t talk to the ones she likes. She barely looks at them.

 

It’s better that way.

 

Safer, too, she learns when she watches the draft and sees Kent go first. He fakes a smile. He’s a great actor now, but she knows what heartbreak looks like on him. Jack fucking Zimmermann.

 

\\_._/

 

It goes like this:

 

Kent goes to Vegas. Kent stops stops coming home for holidays and off seasons. Jordan stops trying to call him. When the media comes around the family plays the part of loving, supporting relatives, but everyone saw that Mrs. Parson wasn’t at the draft to give Kent a hug when his name is called first.

 

Jordan doesn't think about how she misses him. She’s too busy with hockey to think about it. She’s a sophomore now and she made her varsity team and she’s doing pretty good. When her team plays the team her dad coaches, he spends the entire game grinning at her. He’s proud of her.

 

“She’s the son Tom always wanted,” Uncle Mikey jokes at family Thanksgiving. Heather slaps him. Jordan is in the kitchen helping Grandpa cut the turkey when it happens, but overhears and can’t help but think yeah, that’s true. She’s just like one of the boys on his team, he always says.

 

Of course, then he goes around and asks her if she really wants to wear a suit to the winter semiformal, offers to buy her a dress so she doesn’t look like a-- like something she’s still shocked he called her, even years in the future. And once she cuts her hair he frowns at her for a full week. And she wonders what the hell she needs to do to make him happy.

 

It’s around now that she decides to go far away for college. At least another state. She feels like she’s fucking suffocating in New York.

 

\\_._/

 

When Jordan’s older she pieces things together. It's not completely clear, but she starts to understands things better than she did when she was a kid. She understands that money was tight in the Parson household ever since Uncle Victor lost his job in the Kodak layoffs in ‘97. Just part of living on the edge of the Rust Belt, really. The jobs dry up and everyone leaves. First Victor, then his son, and then even Jordan, eventually.

 

It’s funny, growing up in the Burned-Over District, a historic hotbed of religious cults and awakenings. Joseph Smith founded the Mormon church a town over from them, and the Fox sisters started the American spiritualism movement with their seances in the city. There’s a strong history of obsession with people who promise a better life that sometimes Jordan wonders if Kent’s just following tradition, throwing all his emotions at the first person who offers something better.

 

Fact of the matter is, things aren’t so happy, but they’re a fairly traditional Irish-Catholic family and they don’t talk about their feelings. Heather brings up therapy once and is shut down quickly enough that no one ever brings up Kent’s _problems_ again. He just gets meaner and messier. And when Jordan acts the same way? She just feels guilty about it. About being angry, about liking girls, about everything.

 

God, she wishes someone would have just fucking admitted that everything is wrong and they needed help.

 

\\_._/

 

It goes like this:

 

Jordan is standing in the kitchen of the men’s hockey house and her feet are soaked with warm beer and she’s looking at both the girl she has more conflicted feelings about than she’d care to admit and the cousin she hasn’t spoken a word to in over two years.

 

His eyes are red, so she knows he’s been crying. More than that, his hair is mussed and his shirt untucked, and he’s swaying. He’s always been a sloppy drunk-- more so than her, even.

 

“Shit, you got tall,” he slurs, after a minute. Celeste is still frozen between them.

 

“Yeah. Taller than you,” Jordan says, stepping back and to the side to put the kitchen table between Kent and herself. She hasn’t seen him in ages. He’s not the cousin she grew up with-- he looks angry and sad and she doesn’t trust him.

 

“Yeah, well, I didn't ask to take after my dad. I'm fucking tiny.”

 

“Don’t think that’s gotten in your way. You've done pretty well for yourself.” Jordan is very aware of Celeste’s eyes on her and the wet socks on her feet. Neither feeling is very comfortable.

 

“That's what they say,” Kent says, then sits across from Jordan at the table. Jordan sits too.

 

“Why are you here?” Jordan says, even though she knows.

 

Kent takes off his hat and runs a hand through his hair, though it doesn’t do much to tame it. Jordan has the same hair, albeit darker. She knows how hard it is to deal with. “Visiting Jack,” he says.

 

“Jack doesn’t want to see you,” Celeste interrupts with a vitriol Jordan hasn’t heard in her voice for months, taking a seat as well.

 

Great, Jordan thinks. Now they’re all sitting at a table-- three people who probably despise each other in some way or another. No way this can end well.

 

“Yeah, I figured that much out. You’re Lefebvre’s kid, right?”

 

“I’m no one’s kid,” says Celeste, which, Jordan has to admit, is pretty baller. “Jack should get a restraining order for you.”

 

Jordan feels like Celeste knows things she doesn’t. All she knows about the week before the draft is unclear, messy, pieced together from rumors and gossip she’s heard from here and there. She doesn’t know what Kent did, but she’s pretty aware of what he’s capable of-- she’s been on the receiving end of his bad moods before. He always knows exactly what to say to strike someone in the most vulnerable place and he’s willing to push until they push back. Maybe he pushes _so_ they push back. Jordan’s not sure.

 

But still. He’s her cousin--practically a brother, really. She’s gotta defend him. “Shut up, Celeste. How’s Vegas, Kenny?”

 

Kenny smiles at Celeste with teeth bared just a tad too much and launches into a story about his latest night out with his teammates, a story full of exaggerated descriptions of gambling and his attempts to pick up girls. Celeste sits between them during the whole story, arms crossed, fuming.

 

Jordan wonders if she realizes that the whole thing is made up-- every last bit of it. Lie or not, by the time Kent’s done talking and reaching for the closest abandoned cup on the table to give it a sip, Celeste is standing.

 

“I really don’t want to listen to any of this. I’m going home,” she says, in that shut-down monotone that gets on Jordan’s nerves.

 

Jordan reaches out and grabs her by the wrist. “Celeste,” she says. Celeste looks down at where their skin touches and doesn’t pull away. Jordan has to tear her eyes away to look at Kent. “Kenny, where are you staying?”

 

“Hotel. Boston.”

 

“How’d you get here?”

 

“Drove.”

 

Jordan sighs. “Okay, you’re definitely not driving back. Celeste has a car. We can bring you, right?”

 

Celeste immediately pulls away. “No. I’m not doing that. He can call a fucking cab.”

 

“He’s a mess. He’ll never make it back.”

 

“His fault that he’s a mess.”

 

“Yeah, well, so I feel responsible for him not ending up in a ditch somewhere tonight. Please. Imagine if it was Jack who needed a ride home.”

 

“Jordan,” Celeste says, tone cautious enough that Jordan knows she’s just on the edge of agreeing.

 

Jordan puts a hand on her shoulder and looks her dead in the eye. “Please.”

 

Celeste can only hold her stare for a moment before she pulls away and swears under her breath. “Fine. But you’ll owe me.”

 

“Yes!” Jordan turns to grin at Kent. “You’re gonna love Celeste’s car.”

 

\\_._/

 

Kent does in fact love the Mercedes. Once they’ve all gotten in and Celeste has pulled out to start the drive into the city he spends ten minutes rambling about his cars in Vegas and then somehow gets on the topic of his cat for the rest of the trip.

 

Jordan keeps the conversation up with questions every so often. Celeste is silent, knuckles white with how hard she’s gripping the steering wheel. When they pull into a spot close to the entrance of the hotel Kent’s at she simply says, “Out.”

 

Jordan gets out with Kent, closes the door, and looks him up and down again before giving him a big hug. She’s bigger than him. It’s weird. He feels weak in her arms, but maybe that’s just because he’s drunk and loose. Not that she's sober, but something about being the adult in this situation, fucking somehow, has made her more alert. She barely feels tipsy.

 

When he pulls away from the hug his eyes are red again. He glances at the car just as she turns to go back to it.

 

“Don’t get too caught up with her,” Kent says. “You’ll only miss her more later.”

 

Jordan tenses, then turns to look over her shoulder at Kent. “I’m not you, Kenny,” she says. She turns back around and looks through the window at Celeste fiddling with the radio volume, pretending not to watch them out of the corner of her eye. “See ya. Call me sometime.”

 

Kent is silent as she gets back into the car and Celeste throws it into reverse to get out of there as fast as possible, tires squealing on the pavement. Jordan catches her watching Kent stand there in the parking lot, alone.

 

They drive back to Samwell in silence, but the anger Jordan had sensed from Celeste earlier seems to have vanished. Something about seeing Kent Parson, hockey prodigy, party boy, millionaire, at his absolute worst has cooled her hatred.

 

After all, he’s just a boy. A mean, angry boy.

 

Selfish, too. He didn’t even ask Jordan about her hockey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Be Nice to Me by the Front Bottoms, which is a song I highly recommend listening to if you want to understand the mood of this chapter.
> 
> Listen, guys, I have a lot of complicated opinions on Kent Parson. I don't like how he's either completely villainized or else treated by the fandom as if he's a perfect sweet baby who "never did anything wrong uwu." Fact of the matter: he was awful to Jack in Parse III, but we don't know much about their history, or his history. So I'm just speculating here. I strongly headcanon that Kent is from western NY, so when I decided that's where Jordan is from, I had to incorporate him into her narrative. They're just great to compare, okay? And lastly, of course, there's a marketing appeal to having Kent Parson in this fic, because let's be real: it's hard to get people to read or care about something with OCs, especially when they're two women. Fandom cares less about that. Can you really blame me for wanting to throw in a fan favorite to help my odds of getting a hit?
> 
> Next week: we got Jordan's backstory, so it's only natural that we get Celeste's next.
> 
> I really want to hear everyone's thoughts about this one! How do you feel about the Kelly family? Do I spend too much time waxing poetic about growing up in New York? Do you want to stop with the flashbacking and get back to the present? I love comments and if you want to come chat on tumblr I'm on there as @hockeydyke.


	12. our bodies born to heal become so prone to die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Celeste Lefebvre from 1992-present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to what somehow became the longest chapter in this entire fic. Just like the previous chapter, this is told mostly in flashback and returns to the present at the end.
> 
> Warnings for severe hockey injuries and discussions of Jack's overdose, but not in detail at all. 
> 
> As always, credit for OMGCP goes to Ngozi.

Celeste spends the first week of winter break counting down the days-- or the hours, to be completely honest-- until she gets to see Jack.

 

It’s funny, really. They haven’t been this close in years. They barely spoke to each other for almost a decade, and then one thing led to another and they were both at Samwell again and now Celeste can pretty confidently say that he’s her best friend outside of her teammates. They work out together, meet up for coffee, all that. She likes it. They understand each other the way only childhood friends can.

 

The thing is, she’s not sure how she’s going to talk to Jack about this. About Jordan. She does talk to him about her more than she probably should, honestly, but a lot of their rekindled friendship is based around a tentative truce in which they both very dutifully avoid talking about Kent Parson, ever. They’ve successfully done so for about three years now and Celeste is hesitant to break that peace.

 

So she does what she’s been doing since she was ten years old. She calls her mom and she tells her everything.

 

“Anyway. I don’t know what to do. I can’t stop thinking about her, which I know sounds absolutely ridiculous to say, but it's true," she finishes. 

 

She's met with silence in response, beside the sound of the disconnected number tone, so she decides it's time to hang up. The Zimmermanns are going to be over for dinner in less than half an hour, anyway. She'll be able to talk to Jack soon enough. The problem is, though, she's starting to fear that the only one who can solve her issues with Jordan is herself.

 

\\_._/

The Lefebvres have never been a picture-perfect NHL family, and a lot of times Celeste thinks it's her fault, but by the time she's at Samwell she recognizes that a lot of things went wrong, but she knows that she didn't fit in in the first place. It's obvious from the time she's very young.

Celeste is not like the other children of the Habs. For one, she’s too quiet. There are four other daughters of players around her age and every time all of them are together Celeste looks like the odd one out. There’s a picture of them from the annual family skate in ‘96 that sits on the mantle in Charles Lefebvres’s home. The four others are all skating in a line, clumsy little kids, all holding hands and grinning. Celeste is sat on the ground next to them, scowling at the camera, face red with an imminent tantrum. Celeste can barely remember now what she was upset about, but she has a feeling it has something to do with the hat and mittens she’s wearing in the photo. Young Celeste hated clothes with a passion and hated the flashing lights of cameras almost as much.

 

It’s not just publicity events. It’s always like that. She’s late to talk and even later to make friends, despite all of the best efforts put forth by Claire Lefebvre (née Beaulieu) to bring her to countless toddler socializing activities. She tries everything: music classes, gymnastics, mommy-and-me crafting groups-- everything.

 

Of course it has to be hockey that finally gets Celeste out of her shell. Claire Lefebvre may be married to a professional hockey player but she hates the game more than anyone she’s ever known. She’s not a doctor, but she’s worked long enough in the sciences and done enough reading to know how ridiculous it is to not only subject your body to the amount of physical trauma the game of hockey entails, but also to celebrate that violence.

 

Her biggest mistake, then, is falling in love with Charles Lefebvre, one of the most notorious enforcers in the entire NHL. They meet in the ER back in '90 soon after Charles is traded from Buffalo to Montreal, Charles fresh from a home game with his nose broken for the fifth time in his career and Claire nursing a fractured wrist she’d gotten slipping on the ice on the sidewalk outside her apartment building.

 

She’s hasn’t been in a long-term relationship since college. Undergrad, even-- when she was pursuing her Ph.D she was far, far too busy for anything more than flings. And now she’s working at McGill doing research in aerospace physic and really, she’s pretty happy just doing what she’s doing without having to worry about men.

 

And then she meets Charles. He’s charming. He’s got that crooked nose and he’s missing a few teeth, but he’s certainly attractive, tall and broad with muscle, with laughter lines already etched onto his face. They compliment each other: he’s emotional where she’s cold, outgoing where she’s standoffish, messy where she’s neat, etc, etc. She hates the hockey but she loves the way he always, always will enter a fight to defend a teammate.

 

Two months after they start dating properly he brings Claire to her first Habs event. It’s his first season with the team, so he’s still getting to know the guys, but Claire can tell by the way he talks about them that he’s already committed to them, both on and off the ice. He’s dedicated. She is, to her own surprise, excited to meet them.

 

Then she’s introduced to the WAGs and some tiny, tiny flash of discomfort positions herself in the back of her mind. It’s not a big deal at the time, but it sure as hell grows to be one eventually. That’s years away, though. For now, at first, she’s just a little bit alarmed at the fact that she looks like a carbon copy of every one of these women. It’s not that she is-- she soon finds that they’re all interesting, unique people, several with their own careers like her-- but she knows what they look like. Thin but well-shaped, blonde, conventionally attractive women in nice clothes, all perfectly poised for cameras and microphones.

 

Claire has to admit that she checks off all the boxes. She’s a good Canadian girl, born and raised in Quebec, well-spoken, polite. And she’s gorgeous, in all the conventional ways, even though she’s been fighting against that her entire life (and has hopefully burned all of the photos of her punk phase that might prove it). That’s why walking into a room with all of the other WAGs puts her on the defensive. She wants to respect them. She does, really. She just doesn’t want everyone-- Charles’ teammates, the media, her family, and especially Charles himself-- to think she’s just arm candy.

 

That might be what she’s worried about. She doesn’t want to be a hockey wife. She just wants to be Claire.

 

\\_._/

 

They date for a year, are married in two, and then, in the midst of a frigid blizzard in the dead of the winter of ‘92, their only daughter is born. She looks like any baby, really-- messy, small, kind of alien in Claire’s arms.

 

She can’t help the feeling, though, that the baby looks like herself, and the combination of this realization and the stress of, you know, giving birth, sends Claire into tears.

 

Charles is unsure what to do. He takes the baby, hands it off to a nurse, and shoves himself into the hospital bed next to Claire to embrace her.

 

“Oh my god, Charlie,” Claire says, trying to shove him away. “This bed isn’t big enough for both of us.”

 

“It is if I want it to be,” he says, settling himself in. The bed creaks. God. If they break it, Claire swears…

 

It holds, though, and Charles takes the baby back and cradles her, more gently than Claire has ever seen him before. “What are we going to name her?”

 

They have a list of names, of course, but they weren’t going to decide for sure until they’d seen their daughter. Well. Here she is, now, and Claire can barely wrap her mind around the fact that she exists, let alone assign a name to her. It seems like too gargantuan a task to be trusted with.

 

Oh my god. She’s a mother. She has a child. This child is dependent on her. Oh my god, she doesn’t know if she can--

 

“Celeste,” Charles says, breaking Claire out the panic flooding through her veins for just a second. “Our little angel, yeah? Celeste?”

 

“Celeste,” says Claire. The baby looks anything but angelic. She screamed as babies do when she first emerged, but now she’s quiet, almost unnervingly so. “Okay. Celeste.”

 

\\_._/

 

And this is how Celeste Lefebvre comes to be.

 

Claire doesn’t want her to play hockey because she hopes to god her daughter will take after her in hating the sport. Charles doesn’t want her to play because Jesus, that’s his little girl, and he knows better than anyone how violent hockey is.

 

Celeste finds a way anyway. She uses all of the strength a four-year-old can muster to pick up her dad’s sticks and practice shooting balled up socks into the laundry hamper. She almost always has a puck on her person. Almost every evening in the Lefebvre home is spent with Celeste asking if they can go skating, over and over.

 

By age four she’s very talkative at home. She can recite things she heard on NHL Network with startling accuracy. In fact, she repeats everything. Charles finally has to cut the swearing habit he’s famous for once Celeste decides it’s a good idea to repeat the word “fuck” for an hour straight, barely stopping to breathe.

 

Outside of their house in the suburbs of Montreal, though, Celeste is silent. She’ll whisper things in the ears of Charles’ teammates, occasionally getting laughs out of them, but she refuses to talk to almost anyone else. Charles and Claire stay up late at night worrying about what that means for her, especially now that she’s about to start school.

 

That’s why, in late September of Celeste’s first year of school, Claire is shocked when Celeste comes home babbling about a boy. She talks all about how they pretended to play hockey all through recess and then somehow is launched on a tangent of talking about some stats that Claire really doesn’t understand. She’s not listening that hard, though, because she’s already picked up the phone to dial Celeste’s teacher and make sure that Celeste hasn’t made up an imaginary friend.

 

The teacher confirms that this boy is real. His name is Jack and he’s a year ahead of Celeste in school, but they have recess at the same time.

 

When Charles gets home he’s thrilled to hear about this development and sits with Celeste on his knee talking about recess for an hour. When she finally runs off to go play by herself, he turns to Claire with tears in his eyes, relieved that Celeste is finally, finally making friends.

 

\\_._/

 

Jack is Celeste’s best friend. She meets him because she still doesn’t know what to do during recess even after two weeks of school, so she spends the time walking the perimeter of the playground until the teacher calls the class back inside.

 

Jack is sitting on the swing, which is something only kindergarteners do, due to some unspoken rules that Celeste doesn’t understand. He’s sits there alone every day-- just sits, not even swinging, which Celeste thinks is a waste of good playground equipment (and it certainly is good playground equipment-- they do go to the best private preschool Montreal has to offer). He never talks to other kids. He’s got dark hair and shockingly light eyes, and he’s a little chubby, but tall.

 

Finally, after watching him carefully for several days, Celeste notices that he frequently moves his hands in a way that she recognizes-- stacked, a foot or so out in front of him, back and forth. He bats at something invisible that his eyes dart around to see.

 

He’s playing hockey, holding an imaginary stick. She marches on over on the third day of watching him and says, “Play hockey with me.”

 

The boy looks up. He has funny eyes and a bad haircut, which Celeste almost tells him right there, but only doesn’t because he says, “Okay,” and stands up.

 

She leads him to a patch of grass right next to the playground and picks up her imaginary stick. “I’m the captain,” she says.

 

“Okay,” he says.”

 

“We play for Montreal,” she says.

 

“Okay. My dad played for Montreal.”

 

“Oh. Mine does too.”

 

And that’s that. They play. This boy is very good at pretend hockey, but Celeste wins, of course, because she’s the one leading the game and she decides what happens. When Celeste’s teacher blows the whistle they’re both sweaty from running around and giggling, and as she’s going to her line, the boy taps her on the shoulder.

 

She turns around and looks at him. He ducks his eyes and looks at his feet.

 

“What’s your name?” he says, scuffing his toe on the ground.

 

“Celeste,” she says. She forgets to ask what his name is, but he says it anyway.

 

“Okay. I’m Jack. Can we play again tomorrow?”

 

Celeste looks at him until he looks back up at her face. Then she nods. “Yeah. We can.”

 

And they do. Every day, in fact. It’s Celeste’s favorite part of school, although she does like when they do science experiments too. But playing with Jack is the best. Usually they play hockey, but sometimes they play pirates, too, since Jack likes pirates and Celeste has to admit they’re pretty cool. After Celeste catches a bit of Jurassic Park on TV one night she suggests they play dinosaurs and they do that for a week until Jack confesses that he’s afraid of dinosaurs, so then they go back to hockey. When it starts to get cold recess is moved inside to the gym and they continue their play, although this time they have to fight more kids for space since the gym gets crowded.

 

Then winter break happens and Celeste misses Jack a lot. Sometimes it’s boring at home because her dad is always away playing games, because he’s at the peak of his career, according to the news anchors, and her mom is busy doing whatever it is her mom does.

 

So on the first day back to school Celeste walks up to Jack and tells him that he’s invited to her birthday party.

 

Celeste tells her mom this that night.

 

“Okay,” says Claire, enthusiasm for this idea evident, “what other friends do you want to invite?”

 

“Just Jack,” says Celeste. Duh. Jack _is_ her friend. She doesn’t need more.

 

After some probing, during which Celeste decides only that she wants some of her dad’s teammates to come, Claire must decide to take matters into her own hands, because when the time for her birthday party comes (at an ice rink, of course) later that month, half of Celeste’s class shows up. This doesn’t thrill Celeste, but she’s distracted by all of her distaste for her classmates when Jack enters the lobby of the rink where they’re all waiting.

 

“Jack!” Celeste drops her skate bag and sprints to him, almost knocking him over with the force of the hug she wraps him with. She’s a lot smaller than him but has velocity working to her advantage. She then drags him over to the table of other kids, completely unaware of the situation going on between the adults overhead.

 

“Holy shit,” says Charles. “What are the odds?”

 

Bad Bob Zimmermann looks shocked for a moment before he’s doubled over in laughter. “Lefebvre?” He laughs until he’s out of breath and holds out a hand to shake. “Didn’t I fight you a few years ago when you were in Buffalo.”

 

“I fought you, more like,” and meets Bob instead for a friendly hug. “I didn’t realize that Jack was your Jack.”

 

“And I didn’t know you had a daughter. I’m so glad they found each other, though. Jack’s not a very, ah, social kid.”

 

“Same with Celeste,” says Charles, still smiling. Alicia and Claire introduce themselves and they sit down together while the kids head out to the ice for their skate and the two couples spend the next hour getting to know each other. It’s the start of a fairly long friendship. Bob is retired and friends with everyone, and Charles is still mid-career but excited to talk to someone with a little bit more experience than he has.

 

Celeste is thrilled with this development. It means more playdates with Jack, and that’s fantastic.

 

\\_._/

 

It comes to absolutely no one’s surprise that Jack and Celeste are thrilled to start Peewee hockey. The two of them are menaces on the ice, way too dedicated and intense than kids in elementary school have any right to be. They’re both good, too, which Bad Bob always talks about when he drives them to and from practices.

 

Charles is less sure of this. He comes to Celeste’s games whenever he can and always cheers her on louder than anyone else, but he’s also the first to suggest she leave the ice when she takes a hit or a tumble. He’s worried about her, even though she’s doing a pretty good job holding her own, despite being small for her age. She knows how to be aggressive and she’s smart on the ice.

 

When Celeste is seven Claire decides it’s time to transition from co-ed to an all girls team, and Celeste makes the transition smoothly. It really doesn’t make that much of a difference to her since she doesn’t make a habit of hanging out with her teammates anyway and is already more skilled than any of them, boys or girls. It’s all the same to her. She just likes playing.

 

\\_._/

 

Celeste is her father’s daughter, through and through. He’s her first hero. She grows up pressed up against the glass at NHL games, eyes following him on the ice even before she’s old enough to understand what’s going on or what he’s doing. All she knows it that he’s her Papa and he’s amazing.

 

She looks like Claire-- lean, blonde, sharp features, not very expressive facially. Her mannerisms resemble her father’s more, probably the most notable of which being the iconic roguish raised eyebrow that gets him on the cover of ESPN in the early 90s. When she first does the same thing at age three he laughs, deep and happy, for ages and picks her up to spin her in the air like he always does, so of course she makes the face at him again and again. Other than that, though, she’s all her mom. The cool, calculating temperament, the mind for numbers and equations, the uncompromising stubbornness all add up. Everyone agrees that they’re startlingly similar.

 

They never get along, though, even more so than the average mother and daughter. For one, Claire is never, ever happy with Celeste’s hockey. She discourages Celeste from playing, begs her, even. She’s never happy with what Celeste is wearing or how she talks to people, constantly shaking her head disapprovingly when they’re in public. Celeste in turn is always very obvious about her preference for her father, giving him hugs and talking to him nonstop all while ignoring Claire.

 

Really, it’s not that much of a surprise that when push comes to shove, Celeste chooses her father over Claire.

 

\\_._/

 

Celeste is eight when the accident happens. She’s in the crowd at the Bell Centre with her mother because of course she is. She’d go to all of her dad’s home games if she could, but of course they interfere with her own practices and games frequently. This night, though, a Friday in late November, she’s in the crowd, wearing her Papa’s jersey and watching him as dutifully as ever.

 

At age eight Celeste isn’t much bothered by the gore of hockey. She’s grown up with it, after all, seen her dad come home with a bloody face, dealt with his shouting after she tries to climb him for a piggyback ride when he’s bruised and aching from a rough game. And she’s had her own share of achiness already and seen several teammates escorted off the ice with injuries.

 

So when a player even bigger than her father collides with him, sending him flying up into the air, high enough almost to the point of being comical, and back down again onto his leg, it’s not the idea of an injury itself that bothers her.

 

It’s the screaming. It’s her father, crumpled into himself on center ice, not getting up. But god, mostly it’s his inhuman screaming. Her mother tenses beside her when the hit happens, already aware that cameras are aimed at them for their reaction. Celeste is less trained to respond to that and instead pushes her way out of their row and runs down to the glass at the bottom of their section, pressing her hands up and standing on her tiptoes so she can see.

 

After ten excruciating minutes of waiting, the entire stadium quiet with anticipation, things suddenly start moving again. Everything is a blur. Somehow Celeste is ushered out of the stands with her mother and they end up below the stadium in a mess of room that Celeste has grown up wandering. She watches her father as they load him into an ambulance. He’s still groaning with pain, eyes glazed over with it, completely unaware of his daughter and wife in the room. Celeste gets a look and his leg as he’s carried by on the stretcher. It doesn’t look right at all and some part of her knows then that his career is over.

 

\\_._/

 

She’s right, of course. Charles’ leg is broken in four places-- practically shattered. He’s concussed. More than that, he’s just plain worn down. He’s been taking more hits than almost anyone else in the NHL for more than a decade now. His body is battered from repeat injuries and in the past few years he’s had more than one frightening concussion. When a doctor at the hospital explains this all to Claire she takes it with a straight face, not reacting at all. Celeste barely understands what’s going on because she just wants to see her dad.

 

He’s silent when they finally are let into the room after his first set of surgeries. He doesn’t talk to her. He doesn’t talk to his wife. The meeting ends with Celeste screaming at him to please say something, but he doesn’t. She recognizes her father’s empty, blank stare as shock and the way he’s shrunk into himself at shame at being rendered unable to do the one thing he’s based his life around.

 

I’ll still love you even if you can’t play hockey, Celeste things, over and over, but she doesn’t say it, because she’s eight and her mother is ushering her out of the hospital room too fast for her to pull all her thoughts together into words.

 

\\_._/

 

Charles undergoes inpatient treatment for his leg and concussion at a medical facility for a month. When he comes back home he’s wheelchair-bound, and despite the best physical therapy that money can buy, he doesn’t walk for a full year after the injury because every single thing that can go wrong does. His complications have complications.

 

He’s angry, which Celeste understands. What she doesn’t understand is why he has to be angry at him and her mom too. He barely sleeps. Usually he just stays in the living room, watching hockey until Celeste gets home from practice one day-- her teammates’ mom has been driving her-- to find their TV smashed on the floor of the living room. Celeste doesn’t need to be told that her mom did it.

 

Charles is just staring at the wall where it once was, silent, as if he hasn’t noticed the difference. Maybe he hasn’t. Celeste isn’t sure. She gives him a hug and then runs upstairs to lock herself in her room, which she’s been doing more and more lately, and call Jack so he can talk to her about something else to distract her. Jack is great at that. He knows not to ask any questions when the yelling gets loud enough even for him to hear on the other end of the call.

 

\\_._/

 

Charles gets better physically, but not as much emotionally. Celeste spends as much as she can out of the house and usually that means playing hockey, either with her team or with Jack and his teammates. She’s getting good. Really good. She’s the lead scorer on her team and her coaches always talk about how she’s going places, although it’s unsure what those places are. It’s not like she’s bound for a pro league-- not because she’s not good enough, but because there aren’t any.

 

Her parents don’t come to her games, but her dad does start talking to her again. Not about hockey-- never about hockey. Sometimes they go for walks; short ones, because although Charles can walk with the assistance of a cane now, he’s still slow and it hurts him. When he’s not feeling up to walking they talk about school and he jokes about how he’s not smart enough to understand her homework, so she spends a lot of time teaching her things she learned in school that day. It’s good review for her, but more than that, she’s just glad to be talking to her dad again.

 

Things are going less well between him and her mother. They fight constantly. He doesn’t want her to go back to work, she thinks he’s keeping her from being a functional adult. She thinks he isn’t trying hard enough to get back out in the world, he thinks she doesn’t understand what he’s going through. Both of them are loud and they throw a lot of things. They keep Celeste out of it, go quiet when she enters a room, but she can hear them fighting from the other side of the house.

 

It’s after a particularly loud and drawn-out fight that the door to Celeste’s room suddenly opens and her mom steps into the room.

 

She’s clearly been crying, eyes red and puffy. Her hair is greasy and thrown up in a messy bun. It’s in this moment that Celeste realizes that she could probably count on one hand how many times she’s seen her mom without makeup on, and this is one of those times.

 

Celeste is already in bed, blankets hiked up to her chin. After the first glimpse of Claire she closes her eyes quickly, pretending to be asleep. She feels like she’s in trouble somehow.

 

Claire steps over to the bed and sits at the foot of it, light weight barely making a dent in the blanket. “Hey, darling.”

 

Celeste is silent. She’s not sure what she’s supposed to say.

 

“You know it’s been rough ever since the accident, yeah?”

 

Celeste tries to deepen her breathing. If her mom thinks she’s asleep then maybe she’ll leave and they won’t have this conversation.

 

“You’ve been so good for your father, Celeste. He loves you so much. I love you so much. We’re very proud of you.”

 

Celeste waits for the but.

 

After a minute of silence, Claire sighs. “I just don’t think this life is cut out for me. Him and I aren’t ever going to want the same thing. I can’t be his wife.”

 

Claire stops speaking after that, but Celeste can interpret the silence as, “I can’t be your mother.”

 

Still, Celeste doesn’t speak, mostly because she’s afraid she doesn’t even have the words possible to keep her mom from leaving.

 

Claire leaves, and within three minutes, for the second time in her life, Celeste hears the sound of her father screaming like he’s dying. She doesn’t know how to comfort him, so she does the only thing she can think of doing: she calls Jack, and within an hour Bob and Alicia have come to pick her up and bring her to their home to stay for a bit.

 

Celeste is ten and she’s scared.

 

\\_._/

 

Charles cries more than Celeste thought a person was capable of crying. He also starts going to all of her games again. After all, he doesn’t have anything better to do, and she’s good.

 

They start talking hockey. Celeste wonders if he sees the way she swerves to avoid contact now. It’s not enough to compromise her playing at all, but she’s definitely more careful than she was before. Either way, the two of them don’t ever talk about injuries. There’s other things they can talk about, like Celeste’s team, or what middle school she wants to go to, or Jack’s team, because Jack is doing great too.

 

Celeste never cries about her mom leaving, but sometimes she picks up the phone and calls her mom’s cell phone number. It’s deactivated. She has a new phone number for her apartment in Quebec City and she calls Celeste once a week, dutifully, to check in on her, but sometimes Celeste likes to pretend she’s like a girl in a movie with a mom who she can have honest heart-to-hearts with, and that’s what the cell phone number lets her have.

 

Of course, instead of advice she gets the monotone beep of a disconnected line, but still. It’s better than nothing.

 

\\_._/

 

Things go from bad to worse. Even before he enters the Q Jack is followed around constantly by the press. They analyze his on-ice performance as much as they would an actual adult’s and try to ask him questions that he’s been trained since birth to ignore.

 

Celeste hasn’t ever been recognized outside of official Habs event when she was a kid, or a few times soon after the accident. No journalists compare her with her father. To the hockey world she is invisible, and she’s never sure if she’s thankful she’s not Jack or jealous of him.

 

She definitely recognizes that the attention sucks in a lot of ways, though. She especially feels it when she and Jack head to his rink to run some drills together one day when she’s thirteen and he’s fifteen and gearing up for the QHL draft. Alicia drives them to the rink and drops them off while she goes to meet a friend for coffee. She’s supposed to pick them up in two hours but she gets stuck in traffic on the way back and ends up ten minutes late, which is enough time for Celeste and Jack to walk out into the parking lot to be met with a few camera flashes and a microphone shoved in Celeste’s face.

 

It’s all so sudden that Celeste can’t even process the questions she’s being asked. She stands there, shell-shocked, silent, until Jack grabs her by the arm and brings her back inside. They try doors and end up hiding in an unlocked equipment room until Alicia finds them there half an hour later, Jack still on the verge of a panic that Celeste is quietly trying to talk him down from.

 

The next day a Montreal newspaper runs an local interest story about the children of two local NHL retirees. The language depicts Jack and Celeste as two young lovebirds and the tone is condescending. Isn’t it cute that these two awkward kids of our local heroes have found each other? Isn’t it sweet, this young hockey prodigy and this pretty girl holding onto each other as they leave the rink together?

 

Alicia Zimmermann releases a statement shaming the paper for sexualizing young teenagers and interfering with their privacy. It’s nice but it doesn’t do anything to end the speculation. And unfortunately it’s that sets Celeste and Jack drifting apart. They’re both just so busy, and they hate when people think they’re dating because neither of them are interested in any of that stuff at all.

 

Celeste misses him. She misses her mom. She misses things that she can’t even identify.

 

\\_._/

 

Life goes on. Jack enters the QHL and moves to Rimouski. Celeste starts high school and by the time she’s 16 she’s the captain of her team. They’re the best team in the province and really, no one is surprised, least of all her, when she is brought onto the national team. She’s already a big name in the small but dedicated women’s hockey community and everyone is excited to see how she performs at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

 

It’s her entrance into mainstream hockey world. She’s been preparing for this her entire life.

 

She fails. She falls from the spotlight, and she falls hard.

 

\\_._/

 

While Celeste is back in Montreal recovering her body and her pride, Jack is also back in Montreal, fresh from rehab and spending most of his time reading and listening to reports of Kent Parson kicking ass in the NHL

 

Neither of them are skating. They haven’t talked in two years. When Celeste had heard about his overdose in the summer she’d called Alicia, frantic. Alicia had assured Celeste that Jack was okay and then smoothly diverted the conversation from Jack, instead asking about how the developmental camps for the national team we’re going.

 

Now, Alicia is the one to call her in late February, first checking in to see how she’s recovering, then asking Celeste if she’ll come hang out with Jack sometime.

 

It’s funny. It’s like they’re five again, their parents still setting up playdates for them again, but Celeste is out of school and wondering if she’s ever going to play hockey again right now, so she wants something familiar.

 

When she visits the Zimmermann’s house the next day she’s shocked by how different Jack is. She thinks she understands for the first time what people mean when they call someone a shadow of their former self. Jack is silent, pale, and gaunt. They spend an hour together in which the only sounds he make are quiet grunts of yes or no, and Celeste isn’t particularly talkative either, so there’s a lot of uncomfortable silence.

 

They do it again the next week. And the next. And the next. And each week, Celeste thinks, _who did this to him?_

 

The answer, in her head, is Kent Parson.

 

She doesn’t know for sure what happened between them, but she has a feeling they were more than just lineys. Celeste doesn’t do the whole relationships thing, and she thought that Jack was the same way, but apparently things change. Jack is almost obsessive about keeping up with Kent’s stats. He never talks about him, but he knows whenever he scores a goal or makes an assist or so much as breathes a word to the media.

 

Spring passes. Then summer. In July Celeste finally puts her foot down and says, “Jesus. We need to play again or we’re both going to die.”

 

Jack agrees and they go to the rink together, both clumsy and out of practice.

 

That fall, Celeste goes back to school. She wants to go to college next year and she needs to finish what she missed of high school last year first. Jack tentatively brings up the idea of coaching to her and she and Alicia push him until he follows through with it.

That winter she walks in on Jack glued to the television screen, which is showing replays of an Aces game earlier that night. Celeste isn’t sure if Jack is harboring feelings toward Kent himself or toward what Kent has-- playing in the NHL on the team that Jack was meant to be drafted to.

 

“So,” she says. “Kent?”

 

“I don’t want to talk about Kent,” Jack says, and that’s that. She trusts Jack to know what’s right for him, and this wound is still fresh, not even two years old.

 

When Celeste thinks about how bad Jack was doing when she first got back to Montreal, she can’t help but think about Kent. Kent was there when Jack was losing himself to the pressure. Kent was there when Jack overdosed. Kent was there and he let it happen.

 

Mostly she’s just angry that she wasn’t there for Jack.

 

\\_._/

 

In the end, Celeste doesn’t talk to Jack about Kent. Not yet. She thinks that one day soon she might have to ask some questions, but now isn’t that time. Instead she listens to him talk about Bitty and nods in agreement when Jack praises his skill and personality and general existence.

 

She talks about her teammates. Including Jordan. Jack realizes something’s off, though. “Are you fighting again?” he asks one day when they’re testing some Christmas cookies Charles attempted to make. Baking is just the latest in his string of hobbies. He has a real job now, too, as a commentator for local college hockey, but Celeste still encourages him to keep busy when he’s not working. She doesn’t want him to get bad again.

 

Anyway. They’re eating the burnt cookies and pretending they’re okay, and Celeste says, “No, of course not. We’re fine.”

 

“You’re fighting,” Jack says, fairly confident in himself this time.

 

“How can we be fighting when we’re not talking?” Celeste counters.

 

“Um, because you two are best friends and you talk all the time normally?”

 

Celeste is shocked by this. “We’re not best friends.”

 

“Well, one of your best friends at least. You hang out with her all the time.”

 

“Because we’re practicing!”

 

“You wouldn’t be practicing with her if you really hated her.” Jack gags. “Please tell your dad not to bake ever again.”

 

“Please, you’re just spoiled for any baking other than Bitty’s. Fine, maybe we usually talk more.”

 

“A lot more. Did you argue about something?”

 

Celeste hesitates. She needs to tiptoe around the subject. “I found out something about her that made me pretty uncomfortable.”

 

Jack tenses. “Did she do anything to you? Or the team?”

 

“God, no. She didn’t do anything!” Celeste says quickly.

 

Jack gets up from the kitchen table to refill his glass of water. “What’s the problem, then?”

 

“Um. There’s someone I really don’t like that she thinks is fine.”

 

“Oh. Is that all?” Jack sips from the glass. “You don’t have to like everything your friends like. I think I hate every one of Lardo’s art friends, but she’s still my good friend.”

 

Celeste sighs and stands, padding over to the sink and taking the glass from Jack’s hand to take a sip. “I don’t know. It was just surprising to me.” She hands the glass back. “Maybe I should talk to her again.”

 

“Probably.” Jack spits in the glass.

 

“Ew!”

 

Jack smiles. “Now you won’t steal it from me again,” he says, sitting back down.

 

Celeste kicks the back of his chair and is struck by how glad she is that they’ve gotten to the point where Jack smiles and messes around again.

 

Then she picks up her phone and texts Jordan.

 

\\_._/

 

Jordan texts back slowly at first, waiting hours between responses, but eventually she picks up the pace again to pre-Epikegster levels. She even calls Celeste on New Year’s to rant at her about the Furies game they both streamed a few days before.

 

They end up talking for three hours. Charles has to knock on Celeste’s door three times to get her to come down to dinner. When she finally appears in the dining room he fixes her with the signature raised eyebrow.

 

“So, Jordan,” he says.

 

Celeste glares at him while she spoons potatoes onto her plate. “Tread carefully.”

 

“I’m just saying that I like her a lot. She knows how to throw a punch. I like that.”

 

“Of course you do. She literally uses your moves.”

 

“She learned from the best,” Charles jokes. “You should invite her up to visit sometimes. God knows we have enough empty bedrooms. Invite your whole team.” Anisa had visited for a week the summer before, and now Charles won’t shut up about wanting to see her friends.

 

“I’m not doing that. They’re all visiting family, mostly. Jordan’s with her family.”

 

“Only a short flight away, though,” Charles notes. “I’m just glad you have such cool friends. They’re a lot cooler than mine were when I was your age.”

 

“You weren’t in college when you were my age. College kids are cooler than all these smelly losers in the NHL,” Celeste teases.

 

“You’re so mean to me,” Charles says, mock-offended. “You’re right, though.”

 

“I’m always right,” Celeste says.

 

Charles brings up Jordan a couple more times and Celeste can’t help but be jealous of how he talks about her. He did this a lot last year, too-- talking about Jordan’s playing and acting impressed, and then turning around and asking Celeste if she’s okay, if any of her old injuries are acting up.

 

Celeste doesn’t want to be treated like glass. She’s an adult and she plays a physical sport. This time, at least, she’s aware of why she’s feeling angry toward Jordan, and she makes sure not to let it bleed into her conversations with Jordan.

 

\\_._/

 

All in all, Celeste is relieved to go back to Samwell. Their first game after the break is a week after they get back, and she’s so busy trying to get into the classes she needs for her last semester at Samwell (Jesus, she doesn’t even want to think about that) that she barely sees any of her teammates outside of regular practice until the night of the game.

It’s against Harvard because of course it is. It’s a home game, though, which Celeste is happy about. They’re a little rusty from being gone over break and they need every possible advantage to do well because Harvard is on a win streak.

 

Ten minutes before puck drop Jordan stops her outside the locker room. She’s heading out while Celeste is heading back in, and the nature of Jordan’s height and size means that Celeste can’t physically get past her.

 

“Hey,” says Celeste. She’s not unhappy to see Jordan so close up, not at all, but she does need to get through.

 

“Hey yourself,” Jordan says. She brushes a strand of Celeste’s hair that’s escaped her ponytail out of her face. “Are we good?”

 

“Are we good?”

 

“Epikegster. I know you don’t like him but he’s like, my family, you know?”

 

“Oh, that. Yeah. I understand. I’m not mad about that.”

 

“Okay. Because you didn’t talk to me at all for like, two weeks. So I thought you were.”

 

Celeste raises an eyebrow at Jordan. “You confuse me.”

 

Jordan cocks her head. “What?”

 

“You didn’t talk to me either, you know. So really we’re equal.”

 

“Oh, well. That’s a relief, then. You could have called me anytime, though. Really.” Jordan moves out of the way to let her through

 

Before Celeste can stop herself, she says, “I was afraid to.”

 

Jordan freezes. “What? What are you afraid of? I don’t bite.”

 

Celeste resists rolling her eyes and saying yes, you do. “I’m afraid of how much I wanted to talk to you.”

 

Jordan stands there for a moment, quiet for once in her life. Then she nods. “Okay, me too. Glad we’re on the same page.”

 

There’s a lot of things Celeste could say right now. What she does say is, “God, we can’t talk about this right now. We have a game. Let’s go.”

 

Celeste doesn’t look a Jordan as she brushes past her, but she can feel her deflate, and it makes her heart ache. By the time she’s grabbed her headband and turned back toward the door, though, Jordan is already gone.

 

\\_._/

 

Celeste thinks this might be the most intense game she’s ever played. Samwell and Harvard are almost perfectly matched and the end of the second period there’s a score to prove it: 4-4. Jordan and Celeste have each scored once, the rest was a blur of fast-paced hockey and bitter rivalry.

 

One of Harvard’s defenders has it out for Celeste. She’s trying not to let it get to her head, but it’s a struggle. She’s already caught herself shying away from the girl several times and forcing herself to stay on the puck. During intermission she’s been using all her extra energy convincing Jordan not to drop gloves and deck the girl.

 

“She doesn’t even care about the puck, Celeste! She’s just going for you!” Jordan says, after having already thrown her stick down in the tunnel.

 

“Please calm down. Deep breaths. I’m not letting you get thrown out of the game when we’re this close to winning,” Celeste says, before heading in to talk to the other girls. The rookies need some tips and she needs to make sure that Zoe and Chloe understand what they messed up that allowed Harvard’s last goal in.

 

As she passes by Jordan she places a hand on her shoulder and waits a second for her to loosen somewhat. “Whatever happens, we’re good, okay?” She offers Jordan a fist bump, which Jordan takes her up on. “We just gotta trust each other and we’ll do fine.”

 

Jordan nods and before Celeste knows it they’re back on the ice to start the final period. She’s pretty confident in their ability to win here. She’s got Jordan at one side and Lauren at the other. She trusts them.

 

Harvard wins the face-off and they scramble to keep up as Harvard takes it down. Thankfully they don’t make the connections they need and by the time there’s a line change the score is the same. On the bench Celeste is focused, buzzing with energy, tunnel vision concentrating only on the ice. She feels a hand squeeze her left arm, which she knows is Courtney reminding her to drink water, so she does that.

 

Okay. After a minute more of watching she’s ready to go back out. When her line takes the ice again she knows takes a pass from Chloe, fakes to Jordan, and scores top shelf on Harvard.

 

Another face off. They win this one and Celeste shouts to Jordan to move so she’s ready to take the pass.

 

Jordan doesn’t move and Celeste is shaken out of her resolute concentration to find that the defender is coming at her like a fucking moving train, showing no sign of stopping.

 

It’s weird. Time seems to slow. The whole thing can’t last more than a second but Celeste swears there’s a million years in the span of time between looking up and the actual hit. The Harvard girl has murder in her eye. She isn’t looking to get the puck-- Celeste is confident that this hit is meant to take Celeste out of the game. She’s right up against the boards so it’ll definitely do the trick. Celeste closes her eyes braces herself, ready to go through this, again.

 

Jordan takes the hit.

 

Celeste opens her eyes just in time to see Jordan hit the boards right next to her, and then crumple to the ice, and what bothers Celeste the most about it isn’t the hit itself, isn’t even the hollow clang of Jordan’s helmet hitting the boards. It’s the silence after she falls to the ground.

 

Harvard skates away and Celeste hears the blood rush in her ears as her teammates rush to Jordan, shouting. She sees Coach Lewis run onto the ice and toward them.

 

Celeste takes a step away from Jordan and her eyes lock on the defender, who seems just as shocked as everyone else.

 

Celeste skates forward, shaky, and in one fluid motion drops her gloves and swings at Harvard. She makes contact and is thrilled to hear the solid crack of her fist making contact with her nose. The girl puts up a weak resistance and by the time a ref gets between them her face is a mess. If Celeste is hurt at all she doesn’t feel it, confident now that she’s done with this game and ready to see how Jordan is.

 

She turns, almost expecting Jordan to be sat up, shaking off the hit and laughing already.

 

She’s not. She’s still curled on the ice, not moving at all, completely unresponsive everyone around her. Celeste is suddenly aware of the ice rushing closer and closer to her and finds that she’s fallen to her knees.

 

She’s barely aware of a stretcher being carried onto the ice, of someone or the other hooking their arms under hers and pulling her to her feet and ushering her off the ice. Someone is screaming and after a while, a few minutes, at least, she realizes that it’s her.

 

Jordan is lifted onto the stretcher and Celeste is unsure if she’s alive.

 

For the first time in her life, Celeste thinks she might understand why her mother hates hockey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Mars by Sleeping at Last. Full quote is "Our questions ricochet/ Like broken satellites:/ How our bodies, born to heal,/ Become so prone to die?"
> 
> Wow. Like I said, this was really long. Probably too long, if we're being completely honest. I just got really wrapped up in creating Claire and Charles and one thing led to another and now we're here, with a lot of mommy issues and a very one-sided portrayal of Jack's life. And, of course, that hit. I would say I'm sorry for the cliffhanger but I think you all know by now that I love my cliffhangers.
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments! As always, I'm @hockeydyke on tumblr. Also feel free to check out my twitter @sydneyharper98.
> 
> Up next: the aftermath.


	13. make a fire out of this flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jordan Kelly: shitty patient, but overall pretty smooth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! 
> 
> Credit for OMGCP goes to Ngozi.

She’s dreaming. She’s awake. God, she can’t even even tell if she’s alive right now.

 

No, she’s definitely alive, and awake, too, since she can’t remember ever feeling this much pain while dreaming. Did someone put her body through a garbage disposal? The only comfort she has, and maybe the only indication that this body is capable of feeling anything other than pain, is the gentle, soothing motion of fingers in her hair, applying the lightest pressure to her skull. She leans into the hand, tries and fails to mumble her thanks, and falls asleep again.

 

Nothing makes sense. She falls in and out of sleep more times than she can count. Then:

 

“I feel like shit,” Jordan says, her first words after what feels like an eternity struggling to stay awake long enough form a complete thought.

 

She’s not even sure that she’s speaking out loud. Time is fuzzy and she feels like she’s already woken back up and fallen asleep a thousand times. She’s gotta be hungover, she thinks-- her head feels heavy and her stomach sick, and all over there’s just a feeling of something _wrong_ with her body.

 

“You look like shit, too,” says a voice that Jordan recognizes but can not, for the life of her, identify.

 

She opens her eyes, and. Oh. She’s in a hospital bed.

 

Not hungover, then.

 

She looks around to find the source of the voice and finds that Sierra is slouched back in a chair pulled next to the bed-- really more of a cot, if Jordan’s being completely honest here-- and Johanna is perched on the arm to her right. Despite Sierra’s dry tone, they’re both grinning.

 

“Nice of you to join the living world again,” Sierra adds.

 

Jordan tries to sit up. The motion makes her suddenly aware that one, her entire body feels like it’s floating away, and two, she feels like someone smashed her skull in.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ. Am I dying?”

 

“Don’t think so. You’re probably mad high right now.” Sierra produces a cup of water. Where did that come from? Jordan doesn’t understand what’s going on.

 

“Yeah, they gave you the good stuff,” Johanna says, standing. “I’ll go let the others know you’re awake again. We are taking turns chilling with you.”

 

Jordan nods. She thinks about asking what happened, and why she’s here, but she finds that she doesn’t really care. She’s just tired. “I’m gonna…” is the last thing she says before she drifts off again, face pressed against the paper-thin pillowcase.

 

\\_._/

 

Jordan wakes up again and this time Anisa is at her side, lit up by the light of her phone screen while she scrolls through her Instagram feed. This time Jordan’s alert enough to ask for the time. It’s eleven. She’s been in and out for the past few hours, but now she’s actually able to stay awake long enough to talk to a doctor.

 

“Sprained wrist, broken nose,” the doctor says, and Jordan looks down and notices for the first time that her wrist is bound tightly in bandages, “and a mild concussion. Is this your first?”

 

Is it? Jordan can’t say one way or another. No, wait. She’s never been concussed before. She’s pretty certain of that. She nods.

 

“Then there’s the matter of your tooth.”

 

“My tooth?” Jordan lifts her hand to her mouth to examine it for herself and is stopped by the doctor’s firm hand on her wrist before she can do so.

 

“You did knock out one of your teeth. I can give you some contact information for local dentists who you could talk to about dental implant options. It’s common enough in hockey that they’re used to doing this sort of thing.”

 

Badass, Jordan thinks. She’s gonna look so tough. The only way she’s going to get an implant is if it can be one of those old gold ones. Or silver, maybe. Which would she pull off better?

 

“And your friend already offered to drive you home, so once you sign off you can be on your way.”

 

“Alright. Cool,” Jordan manages. She’s pretty sure she’s going to forget all of this in within ten minutes. Whatever-- that’s what Google is for. She’ll worry about it after she’s spent approximately five years asleep in her own bed.

 

\\_._/

 

Jordan is thankful that it’s dark out when they-- Sierra, Johanna, Anisa, Celeste, and herself-- finally leave the hospital. The bright, artificial light of the hospital had been chipping away at her brain, making the headache she’d woken up with even worse with every passing moment.

 

Sierra and Johanna walk on either side of Jordan, both at ready to-- what, catch her if she falls? Jordan’s not sure. It’s convenient, though, because it makes it easy for her to ask them quiet questions.

 

“Did someone tell my mom?”

 

“Yeah, Coach Lewis called your family. They asked if they should drive up here, but he told them that you would contact them tomorrow when you’re feeling better and decide then.”

 

“Did we win?”

 

“Yeah. No one else scored.”

 

“What happened?”

 

This question actually makes Sierra stop cold. Jordan nearly stumbles as she stops walking as well, and Johanna wraps a hand around her forearm.

 

“What?” Jordan asks, distraught. Why are they all acting so weird?

 

“I mean, I guess they said you might not remember,” Sierra shrugs. “Maybe Celeste will tell you,” she adds, quieter. Celeste is walking ahead of them, far enough ahead that she probably can’t hear.

 

Jordan would actually prefer a straight answer, but she really can’t be bothered to deal with whatever this is, so she hurries up her steps to catch up with Ani and lean against her instead.

 

They’re nearly to the car, anyway. When Celeste unlocks it and the headlights flash on, the light floods Jordan vision so harshly that she feels lightheaded for a second. “Fucking hell, Celeste. Are you trying to kill me?”

 

Celeste doesn’t answer. She just gets in and turns the radio on, switching to an 80s station while the others pile into the car and make sure Jordan is safely buckled into the window seat behind the driver’s seat. Jordan has half a mind to kick at the back to get a reaction out of her-- anything, really, other than this fucking _ice._

 

Instead, Jordan falls asleep two minutes into the ride. This concussion is going to be the end of her sleep schedule, honestly.

 

She’s woken up by Anisa’s gentle hands shaking her shoulder as she quietly says Jordan’s name. Jordan is not thrilled about being woken up. She can stay in the car overnight, thanks.

 

“Come on, Baby Butch. Courtney made a blanket nest in your room while we were still at the hospital. You’ll love it. It’ll be so much more comfortable than here.”

 

“Nghghgf,” says Jordan. “Carry me.”

 

“Absolutely not,” Anisa says, in a tone that makes Jordan sit up instantly.  Jesus. She knew that Celeste had a commanding tone-- she’d never realized that Anisa possessed an even more powerful one. It’s a cool secret power, Jordan thinks.

 

With Anisa’s help, Jordan is ushered inside. What seems like half of her teammates are sprawled out in the living room when they enter, and start up a slow clap when they see that Jordan is okay and on her feet.

 

“Oh, fuck off,” Jordan says, although she is thankful that she means enough to these girls that they stayed up late after the game to make sure she’s okay. She’s close with a lot of them, sure, but enough for them to sacrifice sleep? That’s-- that’s a lot. She feels weirdly emotional about it, which she doesn’t like.

 

“Grumpy baby!” says Johanna. “Alright, everyone out of house now. You see that she’s fine. Bedtime.”

 

Jordan slumps against the doorway, not bothering to move to make it easier for the girls to file out of the living room. A few offer her fist bumps, which Jordan clumsily meets with her left hand, since her right is in a brace because of the sprain.

 

Finally, once they’re all out and only the permanent residents of the house remain, Ani steps in front of Jordan and gives her a firm look. “Bedtime for you,” she says.

 

“I want to shower.” Jordan feels even more gross than tired now. She’s lusting after a long, warm shower.

 

“Fine. But leave the door unlocked.”

 

“‘Kay, mom.” It’s not even that much of a chirp to call Ani that. Jordan may not be a rookie any more, but Ani still maintains the same level of protectiveness over her rookie class. “I won’t be long.”

 

She heads to her room and finds that Courtney has, in fact, created a nest of pillows and blankets, and set up water bottles and some low-grade painkillers on Jordan’s nightstand. Jordan drops the wrist brace on the bed to put on again later and grabs a towel from the floor and some comfier clothes before she heads upstairs.

 

When she gets to the bathroom-- the one connected to Celeste’s room, since the first-floor bathroom doesn’t have a shower-- she drops all her stuff on the floor and drops her hands to grip the edge of the sink while she looks herself head-on in the mirror, trying to get used to the way her smile looks missing a tooth.

 

She was right. It does look pretty badass. She kind of loves it-- thinks she might love it more once her face stops hurting, although she’ll be sorry to see the starting of a black eye and the split lip go. They also make her look tough.

 

She grins. She scowls. She spends ten minutes making faces at herself, running on a second-wind of the adrenaline of looking like she thinks she’s supposed to.

 

Then a fist bangs on the door with a level of aggression that makes her jump.

 

“Hurry it up so we can go to bed!” says Courtney’s voice from the other side.

 

“Fuck off. I’m getting in,” Jordan says, pushing through the aches and dropping her clothes off before getting in the shower for a blissful ten minutes of a steamed shower that’s probably too hot but feels right.

 

By the time she’s dried off her eyelids are getting heavy again and she’s slow about putting on joggers and a t-shirt. She doesn’t bother brushing her teeth or drying her hair, just leaves her dirty clothes on the ground and heads back downstairs.

 

Celeste is in the living room, which Jordan has to walk through to get to her room. She’s on the couch and the TV is on, set to the weatherman warning about more snow, but Celeste is clearly not watching. She stands when Jordan enters the room.

 

“Leave your door open so we can check up on you easily,” Celeste says. It’s the first thing she’s said to Jordan since she woke up in the hospital.

 

“Ah, gonna wake me up every hour to make sure I’m alive?” Jordan yawns, rubs at her tired eyes, flinches when that hurts. “Don’t be surprised if I murder you.”

 

Celeste scowls. “That’s not even actual concussion protocol. It’ll just make it easier if you need to yell for one of us to come help you with something.”

 

“Right.” Jordan says, shoving her hand in the pocket of her sweatpants for lack of anything else to do. “I, uh. Appreciate it.”

 

“Get some sleep,” Celeste says, brushing by Jordan on her way upstairs.

 

Jordan stands there in the living room for a minute or two, wondering if Celeste is mad at her or if this is just another layer of the woman that she’s only now uncovering.

 

Whatever, she finally decides. She’s tired. She’ll worry about it in the morning.

 

\\_._/

 

Morning is accompanied by a lot more pain than Jordan had felt the previous night, so the entire house has to deal with her wrath as she tries to go about her life as if she’s fine.

 

“Absolutely not,” says Courtney when she finally gets up a bit after noon, heads to the kitchen for breakfast (lunch?), and tries to check her phone. “No screens.”

 

Jordan huffs and throws the phone across the table. “Was gonna call my mom.”

 

“I’ll dial and put it on speaker for you.”

 

Jordan has no choice but to agree. This _sucks._

 

Everyone is pretty helpful, though. Ani helps her email her professors to tell them that she won’t be in classes for at least a week and to talk about extensions on assignments. Coach Lewis deals with her anger about being removed for games for a while. Sierra and Johanna finally sit her down a few days after the game to give her the lowdown on what happened.

 

“I remember most of the game, you know,” Jordan says. They’re sitting out on Lake Quad. It’s frigid out, but the three of them are from cold enough regions that they’re not particularly bothered, and anyway, if Jordan has to spend another minute inside she’ll scream.

 

“But not the hit itself.”

 

“Maybe? I don’t know. It was the girl who wouldn’t get the fuck away from Celeste, right?”

 

Sierra and Johanna share a look, which is normal for them, but still frustrating. “Yes,” Johanna says, finally. “Anything more than that?”

 

It’s weird. If Jordan thinks too hard, everything surrounding the hit goes blank, but if she tries to think around it, she can sort of see it, feel it, in the peripheral. She tries the latter method and she feels the moment, but it feels more like a dream than a memory.

 

“I don’t know,” she says, finally.

 

“I’ll describe for you. Very badass,” Johanna says. “Five girls on you. Very intense. You fought them all.”

 

“Then their captain took a shot at you,” Sierra adds.

 

Johanna nods vigorously. “Puck to face! That’s how you lost the tooth.”

 

“Pretty sure that’s not how it went down,” Jordan says, although she definitely is entertained by their antics. She sprawls out on the blanket they brought out, propping the back of her head on her arms and squinting at the gray sky through her sunglasses.

 

They’re all quiet for a minute. Sierra lays down next to her. “I don’t know why we’re being all shifty about it.”

 

“Yeah, me fucking either,” Jordan says. She closes her eyes when the sky gets too bright for a second.

 

“Suspense and dramatic irony, probably,” says Johanna.

 

“The girl meant to hit Celeste. You got in between them and took the hit instead.”

 

Jordan sits up, suddenly enough that blood rushes to her head, making her see stars for a second. She lifts her sunglasses to look at Sierra better. “That’s all?”

 

“That’s all?” Sierra cocks her head at Jordan. “It was pretty selfless of you.”

 

“Major sacrifice, man,” Johanna adds.

 

Jordan makes a face. “Not really. You know how far back it would set her if she got that hit? She doesn’t deserve that. I’m glad I did it. It makes sense.”

 

“Huh.” Sierra lays back again. “Celeste doesn’t think so.”

 

“Yeah, no shit. She’s barely talking to me. I don’t think she’s ever been this mad at me.”

 

“Mad at herself, more like,” says Johanna. “Should talk to her.”

 

Jordan gives an exaggerated sigh. “Maybe I will when she stops avoiding me.” She lays back down, gently and slowly. Her head is a lot better, but she’s still cautious about it. She wants to get back on the ice as soon as possible. If nothing goes wrong there’s a chance she’ll be able to play before the end of the season, and something about playing again with Celeste before she graduates is the most important thing in the world right now.

 

Sierra reaches over and ruffles Jordan’s hair, gently. “She will eventually. Don’t worry about her moods. You did good.”

 

Jordan doesn’t really care if she did good. She just did what needed to be done.

 

\\_._/

 

As it turns out, Jordan is able to put an end to Celeste’s avoidance tactics that very evening, when she catches Celeste trying to quietly stomp snow from her boots as she returns from what Jordan would guess was a late-night library session, if her full backpack and the dark circles under her eyes are anything to go by.

 

Jordan is making a trip to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. When Celeste sees her, she freezes for a moment, then looks resolutely at her boots, head turned down while she brushes caked snow from the laces.

 

“You’re not that sneaky, you know,” Jordan says. “You’ve barely been home this week.”

 

“I’m working on a paper,” Celeste says, quickly. “I put it off too long and it’s due this Friday.”

 

“Bullshit. You always do your papers way too far ahead of time.”

 

“Not true.”

 

“Whatever. Even if you did procrastinate that much, why couldn’t I come to the library with you?”

 

“You’re distracting. You never stop moving.”

 

“You usually don’t mind.”

 

“I do mind.”

 

Jordan’s gut reaction is to top that with something mean-- to meet ice with more ice. But the thing is, she know Celeste doesn’t mean it. So she goes for something stronger. “You’re my best friend, Celeste. Why are you avoiding me?”

 

Celeste finally looks up from her boots and straightens up. She slowly meets Jordan eyes and sets her jaw into a firm frown before she speaks. “You scared the shit out of me, Jordan.”

 

Silence. A pat of snow falls onto the ground from where it was packed into the crease of Celeste’s coat sleeve. The snow already on the ground is starting to melt, and Jordan can feel the cold water seeping into her threadbare socks.

Celeste takes a step forward, closing in on her, and Jordan feels a sense of deja vu. How many times have they gotten in each other’s faces like this? Probably too many to count.

 

“I’m not going to apologize. You know the reason I’m on your line is because I can protect you.”

 

“It’s too much. It’s more than you needed to do. I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.” Celeste puts her hand on Jordan’s arm, gripping it tight like she needs it to hold her up. “Why are you willing to do that much for me?”

 

“You know why,” says Jordan, and clearly Celeste does, because instead of answering, she lifts onto her toes just as Jordan ducks her head, and they meet in the middle as they kiss.

 

It’s a lot gentler than Jordan expects for how angry Celeste had seemed just a moment before. Instead of aggressive the kiss is soft, not hesitant but definitely a _first kiss._ Celeste’s lips are soft and taste faintly sweet. Probably chapstick, Jordan guesses, before she’s lost in the kiss again.

 

When she finally pulls away to take a shaky breath, Celeste only lets her go for just a moment before she hooks her hand on the front of Jordan’s shirt and tugs her back down again for another kiss. It surprises Jordan enough that she gives a little yelp against Celeste’s mouth as she dips back down, but Celeste’s a good enough kisser that she settles back into her quickly. Jordan’s hands seem to move of their own accord, lifting up to Celeste’s shoulders, then into hair.

 

Celeste is the one to pull away to breathe this time. Her lips are red and her hair is mostly torn out of her ponytail.

 

“I dare you to do it again,” Jordan says, and Celeste does. And again. And again. And again.

 

They stay there in the doorway until they both jump when they hear the turn of the doorknob and the crack of the front door opening. Jordan spots the fear in Celeste’s eyes and takes a big step back, foot solidly hitting the bottom step of the staircase and throwing her off balance so she falls flat on her ass on the stairs.

 

“Fuck,” she says, as Celeste rushes forward, putting a hand on either of her shoulders to keep her from moving again.

 

“You okay?” Celeste asks, and Jordan nods.

 

All in all, they look a lot more suspicious than they would have if they’d just stayed standing in front of each other. When Courtney and Sierra enter the house, their laughing and talking falls silent.

 

“Oh, shit,” Courtney says. “Finally.”

 

“What?” Sierra gently shoves past Courtney to see around her. “Oh! _Finally,”_ she repeats.

Before Jordan can ask what the fuck they’re talking about, Courtney has grabbed Sierra’s arm and tugged her into the living room. “Have fun!” she says over her shoulder.

 

And then they’re alone again, and Jordan is all to aware of the fact that despite the fact that Celeste is smiling softly, she looks absolutely wrecked with exhaustion.

 

“I think you need to go to bed.”

 

Celeste’s face fall, and Jordan rushes to correct herself. “No, shit, no-- I didn’t mean that in a bad way.”

 

Celeste doesn’t say anything for a second. She just raises an eyebrow at Jordan, and god, if that doesn’t make her want to lean up and kiss Celeste again-- but no. She’s gotta get her to go to bed.

 

“I like you a lot,” Jordan says, and this makes her feel a lot more vulnerable than taking that hit for Celeste did. “I’ve liked you for a long time.”

 

“I like you too,” says Celeste. “We’ll talk in the morning?”

 

“Definitely,” says Jordan, and she gives Celeste one final firm kiss for good measure, this time dragging her teeth along Celeste’s lip. She intends to let Celeste go after that, let her head up to her room, but Celeste’s hand flies to her hair and she yanks on Jordan’s hair as she leans up for another hard, open mouthed kiss that’s way too short and leaves Jordan leaning after her, silently asking for more, when she pulls away.

 

“You’re a menace,” Celeste says.

 

Jordan grins. “You like it.”

 

Celeste shakes her head at her, fondly, and heads upstairs. Jordan sits on the steps for a minute more and she can’t keep a goddamn smile off her face. Not even the not-subtle-at-all pointed look from Courtney and Sierra’s wolf whistle as she walks through the living room is able to get rid of the smile, and when she finally gets to her room and locks herself in, all she can manage to do is flop onto her bed and grin into her pillow.

 

She and Celeste.

 

Wow.

 

She knows it's ridiculous, but her last thought before she falls asleep is that this concussion is totally worth it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Little Numbers by BOY. 
> 
> Wow! I know you've all been waiting for ages for this to happen, so here you are! Is it everything you hoped for? Or is it at least decent, I hope! Comment to let me know!
> 
> Up next is the final regular chapter! Wow! We're almost through this thing! You may have noted, though, that there will be 15 chapters of this story, and that's because after the next chapter there will be a (probably) short epilogue.
> 
> You definitely know this by now, but I'm @hockeydyke on tumblr. Come check me out!


	14. shipping up to boston

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are finally falling into place for Celeste Lefebvre. It's about time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the sweet girlfriend content you deserve for putting up with all the drama of this story. 
> 
> Credit for OMGCP goes, of course, to Ngozi.

“I’ve never dated anyone,” Jordan says, right off the bat. Constantly, actually, over the first week of tentative dating, and it seems like it’s more of an assurance to herself that any clumsiness is justified, given her lack of experience. 

 

She says it the morning after they kiss for the first time, while they’re sitting at the kitchen table and arguing over the correct way to pour cereal in a pretty obvious attempt to avoid talking about the elephant in the room. 

 

“Absolutely not. I’ve never met  _ anyone  _ who pours the milk first,” Celeste says, trying to wrestle the milk carton away from Jordan. 

 

“No, it makes sense! How else am I gonna make sure I don’t pour too much milk in?” When she finally frees herself, Jordan hustles over to the other side of the table where Celeste can’t reach the carton while she pours. Celeste sighs settles into the chair across from her, content to put up with this sin mostly because Jordan is making scrambled eggs for her.

 

“Most people can just tell,” she says, exasperated. 

 

Jordan sets down the carton and slams both hands down on the table as she leans against it. The sudden noise startles Celeste and she snaps her head up to meet Jordan’s eyes. 

 

“Let’s cut the crap. I don’t know how any of this shit works.”

 

Celeste raises a brow. “Surely this isn’t your first time eating cereal?”

 

Jordan rolls her eyes. “No, asshole. I’ve never dated anyone before.”

 

Oh. Well, that’s a little different. “That’s fine,” Celeste says, because it’s not like she specifically set out to date someone experienced. She didn’t even intend to date anyone, really. All of her past relationships, casual and short-lived, had just sort of fallen into place, and she’s been busy enough with being a senior and making post-grad plans that she hasn’t dated in-- a while. 

 

She doesn’t care about the specifics of Jordan’s experience. She just cares that it’s Jordan. 

 

“You’ve dated,” Jordan says, and Celeste doesn’t really get what she’s getting at. 

 

“Yeah, a couple times. It’s fine that you haven’t. We can-- take things slow, if that’s what you want.” If you want to date properly at all, Celeste leaves unsaid. They still haven’t exactly discussed that yet. 

 

“No, it’s--” Jordan cuts off, concentrating hard on getting her Lucky Charms into the bowl. Her brow is furrowed and the tip of her tongue sticks out of her mouth a tiny bit. It’s adorable. Once she’s satisfied she sets down the box and sits. “It’s like, there’s so much shit that you know that I don’t know.”

 

“It’s really not that much,” Celeste says. 

 

“Fuck, maybe it isn’t. It’s just something that you should know. So if I’m going to be your girlfriend, you gotta know that I’ll mess up all the time.”

 

Celeste wants to say no, no, you’ve got it all wrong.  _ Yes, I was on and off again with my goalie in high school, and yes, I went to prom with Max Poulin, and yeah, I dated that girl from my college writing class, but god, none of them measure up to you. _ But Jordan’s hand is gripped so tight around her spoon that it’s starting to bend, so Celeste’s priority is getting her to stop freaking out, immediately.

 

“I doubt that. But if you want to be girlfriends, then maybe you should actually get around to asking me,” Celeste says, giving Jordan a small smile.

 

The grin Jordan breaks into reassures her that she’s said the right thing. “Wanna be my girlfriend, Celeste?”

 

“I’d love to.” Celeste can’t help but reach out and ruffle Jordan’s hair, because she  _ can.  _ Well. She could do that before, too, but whenever she did she felt guilty, like she was taking advantage of Jordan by getting such a thrill out of the tiniest of touches. 

 

God, to think she felt so guilty about her feelings for Jordan-- so guilty that she had barely even acknowledged them, let alone made a plan to do anything about them. Now she knows this isn’t anything to feel guilty about. It’s-- well. She’s no poet. She doesn’t have words for it. 

 

It just feels right. 

 

\\_._/

 

“Sorry. I’ve never done this before,” Jordan says when Celeste opens her bedroom door to find Jordan clutching a pitiful, droopy dandelion the next day. When Celeste doesn’t take it she huffs and scowls.

 

Celeste isn’t having it. “You know, most people don’t apologize while giving random gifts.”

 

“Sorry-- fuck, I just did it again.”

 

Celeste steps out of the way to let her into the room. “I’ll get a water bottle and spray you if you say sorry again. Who’s the Canadian here, anyway?”

 

That, at least, gets a smirk out of Jordan. She deposits the flower into the mostly-empty water glass on Celeste’s desk. 

 

“I was drinking that,” Celeste says.

 

“Fuck off and be thankful,” Jordan says, with no bite behind the words. Celeste sprawls onto the bed and pats it until Jordan get’s the message and sits down next to her. 

 

“Now  _ that’s  _ the Jordan I know. Care to explain what that is?” Celeste nods at the desk.

 

“It’s a flower. For you.”

 

“It’s a weed, but okay.”

 

“Dandelions are flowers! And like, what’re the odds of finding a dandelion growing in February? I had to take advantage of that.”

 

“Any reason you brought it to me?”

 

“That’s what girlfriends do? I don’t fucking know.”

 

The whole thing is extremely endearing, Celeste has to admit, but very much not them. “Jo, you don’t have to act different just because we’re official now.”

 

“Oh, you’re one to talk! You’ve  _ never  _ called me Jo before.”

 

“Jordan is too long. You need a nickname.”

 

“The other girls call me Butch.”

 

“Maybe I will too. I don’t know. I’m just saying, let’s just be us.”

 

Jordan finally relaxes some and flops down next to Celeste, shoving at her to get the blanket. “Ugh. Fine. Flowers are dumb as shit, anyway.”

 

Celeste smirks and slowly, still cautious, pulls herself snug against Jordan’s side. “Glad we can agree on something.”

\\_._/

 

All in all, things are pretty good. To some extent. Celeste is struggling with the absolutely crushing weight of her senior thesis and the knowledge that this season is her last chance to bring her team to the NCAA finals. Things are looking good for SWH this year, and somehow that makes the doubt even worse. The farther they get, the harder they’re going to fall if Celeste chokes in the finals. 

 

It’s possible, and always on the back of her mind. 

 

She expects to be scared sick the first time she got back on the ice after Jordan’s injury. Well-- that’s not true, because she supposes she has to count decking the Harvard girl as being on the ice, but she was so enraged and pumped up on adrenaline at the time that she didn’t even know what fear was. 

 

Practices go fine, but really, they’ve never been an issue for Celeste. 

 

Their next game is a Saturday, few days after the kiss and everything that followed. Jordan hangs out with all of them as they dress for the game, pouty about not being allowed to play, but doing a pretty good job at getting everyone pumped up. She’s all too smug about standing at the front of the room with Coach Lewis while he gives them last minute instruction, jumping in with a sly remark or lewd joke here and there. 

 

“Jordan,” Coach says toward the end of his spiel, “if you don’t shut up, I’m not going to let you sit on the bench.”

 

Jordan clams up immediately. “Got it.” She’s quiet for the remaining few minutes, but Celeste catches her making a lewd motion behind Coach’s back when he talks about penetrating Cornell’s defense. Celeste gives her a firm glare, but Jordan just shrugs and grins and her while the other girls snicker. 

 

Not ten minutes later, Celeste is stepping onto the ice for the first period without Jordan at her side-- the first time she’s played without her in months.

 

To some extent, she knows she’s been doing well because she feels safe playing with Jordan. Jordan’s always got her back, so she can make more risky plays and get a chance at playing at being the star. Without Jordan there, she’s just as vulnerable as she was any of the times she’s played after Vancouver.

 

And yet. Celeste’s only taken one Intro to Psychology class, but as soon as puck drops, she thinks some sort of placebo effect must be going on, because she feels like she could take on the world. Maybe it’s because she can hear Jordan screaming like a wild thing from the bench, shouting incoherent directions that really don’t help at all, but Celeste feels settled. 

They win that one 3-1, and by the time they’re parading off the ice and Jordan tackles her with the biggest hug she’s ever received, Celeste isn’t so surprised that she did so well anymore. After all, she’s right where she belongs. First and foremost she’s a hockey player, and nobody’s going to keep her from that.

 

(That doesn’t mean she’s not missing Jordan, though. She’s counting down the days until she’s allowed to skate again, even though she knows that she shouldn’t rush Jordan. But god, they play so well together, and nothing in her life has ever given her the same high as playing on a line with Jordan Kelly)

 

It’s after that game, buoyant and light with excitement, that she finally answers one of her dad’s phone calls. He called her four times the night of the injury, when Celeste was too busy alternating between sitting at Jordan’s bedside and pacing the hallways of the hospital to check her phone. And after that-- well. Fine, Celeste will admit it: she’s avoiding the inevitable conversation, or worse, confrontation, about what happened. 

 

She’s just zipping up her gear bag when her phone goes off with his ringtone-- some top 40s song he’d set for himself last time she was home-- and she only hesitates for a second before answering. 

 

“Salut, Papa,” she says. 

 

“Celeste! Finally! I was just putting your room up for rent, since I figured you were never talking to me again,” Charles jokes, though Celeste can hear the anxiety in his voice draining away into relief. 

 

“Papa, I texted you. I told you I was busy this week.”

 

“Yes, clearly! I’m not surprised, with all that’s been going on.”

 

Yes, all that. She decides to (and she hates how this phrase sounds like it’s being said in Jordan’s voice in her head) cut the crap. “Jordan got hurt. I got suspended from the rest of the game. She’s doing better now. We won our game tonight.”

 

Charles  _ hmmphs _ at this, because unlike Celeste and her mom, he’s always been one for long, drawn-out stories. The man likes gossip. “Yes, congratulations on the goal, but I know that much. I follow the team twitter.”

 

“We have a team twitter?”

 

“Yes! Tyler runs it. Tell him to post more pictures of you.”

 

Celeste wasn’t even aware that her dad and Tyler had been introduced. “I’m not telling him that.”

“Fine, I’ll message him.” Charles takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, his tone has completely changed to something less enthusiastic. “I saw video of your fight.”

 

“Yeah?” Celeste does her best to keep her tone even but her voice still cracks. God. She hates that even now, as an adult, she’s so desperate for his approval.

 

“I didn’t know you had it in you. You really took her out,” he says. 

 

Celeste hums in agreement and braces herself for the  _ but.  _ The,  _ but you know, I can’t help but worry about my little girl out there. _

 

It doesn’t come. 

 

Instead, he hums agreeably, and although this is an audio only call, Celeste knows her father well enough to see in her mind exactly how he’s nodding right now. “I gotta say, watching that video? You look just like me out there.”

 

Celeste can’t help but snort, because she spent plenty of time watching her dad get into fights on ice as a kid. “Dad, you’re about a foot taller than me. A lot more muscle, too. Back in the day, at least,” she adds.

 

Charles mock-gasps. “Celeste Marie! You’re so mean to your father. And to think I was trying to compliment you.”

 

“Was it a compliment? I still don’t really see it.”

 

Charles doesn’t have a comeback for a moment. They’re quiet while he thinks. Finally, Celeste can hear himself take a breath, then say, “I don’t really know how to describe it. You just looked like how I always felt out there. Comfortable. A little riled up, yeah? But in a good way.”

 

“More than a little,” Celeste says. 

 

“Ah, makes sense, considering the circumstances,” he says.”

 

They’re silent for a moment. Then Charles, always the dramatic one in the family, gasps again. 

 

“October!” he says.

 

“October?”

 

“Dani Rylan.”

 

The names sounds somewhat familiar, but Celeste can’t place it. Celeste waits for more, and when he doesn’t explain himself, she huffs. “Papa, that doesn’t mean anything to me.”

 

“Yes, it does. She was playing for Northeastern your freshman year.”

 

Ah, that explains why the name sounds familiar. “Okay, I know I’ve played her. What about her?”

 

“She’s launching a pro league in the US.”

 

“She’s doing-- she’s doing what?!”

 

“She’s starting a new league, based over there in the states. National Women’s Hockey League. Hasn’t been formally announced yet, but-- well, you know I get all the gossip. They’re paying players.”

 

Until this moment, Celeste has been pacing the empty locker room. Now she needs to sit, and she collapses onto the bench in front of her stall and just sits for a moment, processing this. 

 

This changes a lot of things.

 

Celeste is the best hockey player that she knows, but by the time she was maybe ten or so years old, as much as she and Jack played at being in the NHL together, she knew that professional hockey wasn’t in her future-- the leagues just didn’t exist. There was the old National Women’s Hockey League, but that was folding by the time she was getting into high school. Then, of course, when the CWHL started up soon after, she set her sights on that. It was by no means what she’d dreamed of as a kid, but just being in a professional league was more than she ever expected would be possible.

 

By the time she enrolled in Samwell she had her doubts. She’d only been living away from home for a few months when she realized that she didn’t actually like her old plan of trying to get on Montreal’s team and living with her dad. For one, she was kind of sick of Montreal. Besides Jack, she’d never had particularly close friends there and there wasn’t tying her down other than her father. The other thing was the money.

 

Celeste knows her dad could support her. His health issues had taken a lot out of his savings, sure, but he still had plenty from his years getting paid an exorbitant salary for beating guys up and sponsors he still worked with. And he would be glad to have her home with him. 

 

But Celeste is twenty-three years old. She’s about to graduate college and she wants to support herself, be independent, all that bullshit-- and the CWHL doesn’t have the funds yet to pay its players. 

 

Her options before now? Find a job she can actually use her degree for, and play for a smaller regional league on the side, or at the very least a beer league where she can just play for the sake of it. Those are her options, and hell, it might be a little self-centered to think, but she’s  _ furious  _ every time she thinks about her talent going to waste, because dammit, if Jack Zimmermann can be a star, then why the fuck can’t she?

 

She mulls over this for a moment. Her heart is beating fast. Some unknown feeling compels her to look up and when she does she sees Jordan standing in the doorway of the locker room. 

 

“Yo, what’s taking--” Jordan starts, then cuts off when she sees that Celeste is on the phone.

 

Celeste looks at her for a moment, then says, “Papa, do you have any idea where the teams will be based?” 

 

She can almost hear the smile in her father’s voice when he says, “Four teams. One of them’s in Boston.” 

 

Boston. 

 

Yeah, this might be worth looking into. And impossible to pass up. She knows she shouldn’t get her hopes up-- with women hockey’s track record, she wouldn’t be surprised if the league doesn’t even make it to opening day. There’s so much standing in its way. But god, just the idea of it thrills her. It’s a gamble she’s willing to take.

 

“Could you get me some contact info?” she says. Jordan is watching her with raised eyebrows. 

 

“Of course. I’ll email you,” says Charles.

 

They chat for another minute, and when they finally say goodbye and Celeste hangs up, she nearly topples Jordan over with the force of the hug she tackles her with.

 

Jordan laughs and takes this as an opportunity to lift Celeste over her shoulder, gripping her legs to keep her up there. Celeste yelps and play-punches at Jordan’s back until she’s released, but even once her feet are back on the ground she stays leaned up against Jordan.

 

“Hey,” she says, grinning up at her. 

 

“You good?” says Jordan.

 

“Never been better,” Celeste says, and kisses her. 

 

\\_._/

 

Weeks pass. Celeste gets into contact with the commissioner and makes plans to attend try-outs for the league later in the spring. She’s dividing her time pretty equally between schoolwork, repeating one-on-one practices with the girls like she did last year, hanging with Jordan, and looking for jobs in Boston. 

 

Needless to say, she grabs sleep here and there wherever she can. Her teammates have started a game where they catch pictures of Celeste napping around the house and elsewhere and draw pictures over her. Celeste only finds out a week after the game starts and Jordan makes her download snapchat. 

 

One Saturday night in late February Celeste manages to stay in the library working on job applications until 2am. She doesn’t realize it’s so late-- or early, really-- until Jordan calls her. 

 

Jordan’s ringtone is some old dad rock song. Celeste does a double take when she sees the time, then answers. “What are you doing up right now?”

 

“You’re one to talk,” Jordan slurs. Oh, right. She and a couple of the girls had gone to the men’s team kegster. Celeste had decided to work instead. It’s not like she’d be able to let loose anyway, this close to the NCAA finals. “We just got back and you’re not in bed. Please don’t tell me you’re still at the library.”

 

“I’m not still at the library?” Celeste says.

 

Jordan laughs, then Celeste hears a crash. “Oh, shit. Did you move your bed or something?”

 

“No, it’s always been there. You’re just clumsy.”

 

“Rude.” The creak of Celeste’s mattress springs. “Come home,” she says, and it’s just pitiful enough that Celeste can’t disagree.

 

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t fall asleep without brushing your teeth,” she says.

 

“Fuck you,” says Jordan, then hangs up.

 

Any momentary grumpiness has vanished by the time that Celeste gets home, though, because as soon as she shrugs out of her hoodie and flops into bed, Jordan curls around her and presses her face to Celeste’s shoulder. Jordan’s a furnace, so there’s no way they’re lasting more than an hour snuggled up like this, but for now it’s nice. 

 

Celeste is right in that they separate at some point during the night. She must have been more tired than she thought because she sleepily snoozes her alarm and doesn’t wake up until ten in the morning, which is wrong because she always wakes up at nine on Sundays so she can-- shit. She’s going to be late for coffee. She starts to untangle herself from the sheets and is almost immediately restrained by Jordan reaching out and hooking her arm around Celeste’s waist. 

 

“Where are you going?” Jordan mumbles. 

 

“Coffee. Go back to bed. You can sleep in.”

 

“Mmm.” Jordan lets go, rolls onto her side, and cracks an eye open at Celeste. “Bring me back coffee?”

 

“Yeah, of course.” Celeste throws the blanket back over her and gets changed quickly. By the time she’s downstairs and tugging her snow boots on she actually thinks to text Jack that she’s running late but on her way.

 

When she opens her phone, though, she finds that she already has a text from Jack, time stamped ten minutes previous:  _ Sorry. I’m going to be a few minutes late. Bittle’s teaching me how to make pancakes. _

 

Celeste breathes a sigh of relief and texts back  _ no problem, I’m also running late so that works. See you in a bit.  _

 

That gives her a few more minutes to relax before she heads over, so she steps out onto the front porch and sits down on the step, enjoying the brisk air and watching some of the players from the women’s rugby house across the street building a snowman. After a few minutes she finally stands and stuffs her hands in her pockets, speed-walking to Annie’s.

 

She still gets there before Jack and orders them both drinks before grabbing their normal table by the window where they can people-watch. 

 

Jack arrives a few minutes later, out of breath and unable to keep a smile off his red face. 

 

“Pancakes, huh?” she says, raising an eyebrow at him when he sits down and starts stripping off his hat and gloves. 

 

“Yes, pancakes.” He’s got that comfortable, starry-eyed look that Celeste recognizes mostly because she sees it in the mirror more often than not these days. Huh. Interesting, but Celeste doesn’t push it.

 

They sit in easy quiet, sipping at their drinks for a few minutes until Jack sets his cup down and clears his throat. “So.”

 

“So,” Celeste echoes.

 

“About you and Jordan, uh…” he trails off. 

 

“What about us?” Celeste asks. Jack’s the first one she told once they made it official, and he had teased her a little bit about how far she and Jordan have come from all the pigtail-pulling fighting the year before, but interspersed his chirps with heartfelt congratulations. They’ve already covered all the deets, so Celeste isn’t sure what there is left to ask. 

 

“Are you-- ah, I don’t know how to ask without sounding rude. Are you worried at all about getting together so soon before graduating?”

 

Oh. That’s a fair question, she supposes. “We sort of agreed to deal with that when it happens. We want to stay together-- we just don’t know the logistics yet.”

 

“Mm. I mean, I suppose Boston isn’t too far away-- thirty, forty minutes? That’s not awful.”

 

“Exactly. And it helps that I have the car.” She starts peeling the banana she’d grabbed along with her coffee. “Why’d you want to know?”

 

He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says, and she knows he’s being honest, but she’s pretty sure he could figure it out if he thought a little harder. 

 

“Some things are worth putting a little extra effort to make work. Better to try than not try, eh?” she says, feeling just a little smug about being able to offer fairly sage advice. The four-year-old Celeste who likes to boss Jack around really never did go away. 

 

Jack doesn’t respond, but she knows him well enough to understand that he’s processing what she said and storing the information for later. Good. He’ll figure it out eventually, hopefully. 

 

\\_._/

 

Celeste is in her senior capstone seminar the next day when she gets a text from Jordan. She’s never been one to have her phone out in class, but she’d gotten into the habit right after Jordan’s injury, wanting to be available if her symptoms got worse and she needed help. And, well. She also just likes talking to Jordan. She glances down at where her phone is set on her knee when the screen lights up.

 

_ Jordan (11:42): hey can i borrow your car _

 

Celeste is not particularly well-versed in the art of texting without a professor noticing, so she just slips her phone into her hoodie pocket and leaves the classroom. She takes it out again once she’s settled on a bench down the hall and types a response. 

 

_ You (11:44): I don’t even want to dignify that with a response. _

 

The three dots appear immediately, and she receives the text a moment later.

 

_ Jordan (11:44): So is that a no?  _

 

_ You (11:45): You still have concussion symptoms. You’re not driving.  _

 

_ Jordan (11:45): I’m like 99% better  _

 

_ Jordan (11:45): pleaaaaaaaaase _

 

_ You (11:45): Where is it you need to go to so badly? _

 

There’s a pause and the dots disappear. Celeste checks her email while she waits, and— oh. Three new messages about various forms she has to fill out before she can graduate, one message from her dad with a link to a local news article about someone she’d gone to high school with, and a message from someone within the NWHL.

 

She’s officially scheduled to attend Boston’s tryout camp in two months. Free agency starts in June. God, she can’t wait. 

 

Maybe she should tell Jordan and the others. She was able to pass off her original excitement as happiness over a good conversation with her dad, but it’s getting harder and harder to keep it a secret. She does have her reasons-- for one, she’s not sure if she’ll even end up on a team’s roster. She’s going to need to be doing a lot of budgeting and finding a side job that will fit with her game and practice schedule. There’s a lot that can go wrong, basically, and she doesn’t want to jinx it. 

 

_ Jordan (11:47): Aces v Bruins tonight 7pm. I need a break from this school bs _

 

Celeste can’t help but smile at her phone. She supposes she can take one night off from her work.

 

_ You (11:47): I’ll take you. Be ready to go at 5. _

 

\\_._/

 

Jordan’s frustrated. Celeste can see it in the set of her jaw as soon as she gets into the car, and feels it in the way the car shakes when Jordan slams the door. They sit in relative silence for the first half of the drive, speaking only when they bicker good-naturedly about what to play on the radio.

 

Eventually, as they’re getting into the city, Celeste drops the volume and glances at Jordan in the passenger seat. “What’s up?”

 

Jordan sighs. Her feet are propped up on the dash and her forehead is resting on the cold glass of the window, which can’t be comfortable. “School.”

 

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific.”

 

Jordan tilts her head away from the window and rolls it over to look at Celeste, scowling. “I gotta declare soon.”

 

“I thought you settled on majoring in Education?” Celeste says. Jordan’s been discussing it with everyone all year, weighing the pros and cons and taking a few introductory classes.

 

“No, yeah-- I have. I mean, I like kids and all that shit. But what if it’s not right for me?”

 

“You’re allowed to change and do something else later on, you know.”

 

“Ugh. I don’t want to be in college forever. Everyone’s going to graduate and I’m going to die at fucking Samwell. They’ll bury me in the well,” she whines. 

 

“Cute,” says Celeste, but she does get where Jordan is coming from. Almost all of her friends are older-- Celeste and Anisa are about to graduate, and other than Tyler, everyone else they hang out with on the team is a year ahead of Jordan. She can definitely see why Jordan’s worried about feeling abandoned. “Jordan. You get your degree in Education and if you don’t end up liking that, you work in something else. What you major in doesn’t matter  _ that  _ much.”

 

Jordan pulls up the hood of her hoodie and pulls the strings tight so only her nose sticks out. She groans. “You’re all still leaving, though.”

 

Celeste reaches over and tugs her hood back down. Jordan’s hair sticks in every direction. She looks ridiculous and Celeste would be playing with her hair right now if she didn’t have to keep her eyes on the road. “Jordan. I’m going to be in Boston. We’ll be able to see each other all the time.”

 

Suddenly, Jordan’s face is right up next to Celeste, and she doesn’t have to turn her head to know that Jordan is fixing her with a glare. “Jo, don’t distract me. I can’t miss our exit.”

 

“Celeste Marie Lefebvre. You’re telling me that you’re going to be in  _ Boston?” _

 

Oh. So, maybe they weren’t on the same page about this after all. “Yeah, didn’t we talk about this?”

 

“You said you were looking for jobs and I thought you meant in Montreal! How was I supposed to know that you meant Boston?”

 

“Huh. I guess I should have said. Yes, I’m going to be playing in Boston, hopefully.”

 

_ “What?!” _ Oh-- Celeste thinks about what she’s just said. 

 

She has a lot of explaining to do, she supposes. She tells Jordan everything, cautiously, reminding her every few minutes about everything that might not work out, about how she might end up switching to the CWHL everything if she’s not happy, about how maybe she’ll just quit hockey altogether and be a spectacular engineer--

 

But Jordan already has it in her head that she’s dating a pro hockey player, so who is Celeste to let her down by correcting her? They can hope. It might not be what they dreamed of when they were taking their first shaky steps on the ice years ago, but they’re getting closer, and Celeste is glad to be a part of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title was originally going to be something inspirational from a song about following your dreams, but then I thought, huh, I could use I'm Shipping Up to Boston by the Dropkick Murphys, and then I couldn't not do that.
> 
> I truly hope that I didn't oversimplify the complexity of the CWHL and NWHL! Both leagues have strengths and weaknesses and both are like, doing their best? The fact that the NWHL started up right as Celeste was graduating and her own personal goals line up so well that it fits that she's going to do her best to get into the league. One major point that we don't see here is that while the NWHL does pay its players, which is awesome, the salaries are by no means livable wages. However, this chapter takes place even before the NWHL was officially announced (please, I'm taking some liberties and making Charles have wayyyy too many hockey world connections), so Celeste doesn't know anything about salaries yet. She's going to be making some tough choices. 
> 
> One chapter left! I'm currently getting to the peak of papers and projects in my Hell Semester, which is why this chapter was a few days late, but since Thanksgiving is this week, I should have a little bit more time to write. Expect the last chapter by the weekend, if not before then. It'll definitely be bittersweet to finally finish this thing! Don't get too down about it, though-- I'll be making a fairly fun announcement when I post it, so you have something nice to look forward to!
> 
> As always, I appreciate comments more than I can say, so please take a second to leave one! And also, if you're so inclined, visit me on tumblr where I'm also @hockeydyke.


	15. i will be your captain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, this is it! Wrapping up all the loose ends with this one. 
> 
> Shoutouts for this chapter go two ways: one, to Ngozi, for creating OMGCP, and two, to every single one of you who for reading, commenting, sharing, reblogging, and otherwise proving to me that this fic was worth all the time I've been putting into it. I've had such an amazing time getting to know these girls and their story, and I'm so thankful to be able to share it with everyone.

There’s one puck left in the orange bucket Jordan dragged out to center ice. She’s not sure how she missed it when she dumped the whole thing, but she somehow did, so she nudges the bucket with the toe of her skate, tipping it until the puck slides out. 

 

“One more,” she calls out, then heads toward the goal. They’ve been practicing for well over an hour now, so she doesn’t feel bad about showing off for this last shot. She moves the puck backhand to forehand, forehand to backhand, back to forehand one more time-- triple deke-- and shoots. 

 

The puck hits the pipes and ricochets back out onto the ice. She drops her stick and swears, making a big show of dropping to her knees in her despair. 

 

“Very  _ Mighty Ducks, _ ” says her goalie, lifting his mask and grabbing his water bottle.

 

Jordan stops the whining and flashes him a grin while she grabs the bucket and starts to collect the pucks scattered around the rink. “Quack, quack, Chow. Wanna call it a day?” 

 

“Oh, yeah-- I gotta take a shower before my date, so we should probably get going!” He scoops some pucks into his glove to carry over to the bucket and dump in. 

 

Jordan’s the one to grab it once they’ve cleaned up. Chow has a weird thing about touching pucks as soon as he gets off the ice, and she doesn’t have an issue with working around it. She’s grown up around plenty of players with weirder superstitions. Hell, even Kent--

 

Kent. 

 

She looks down at where her phone is resting next to her water bottle on the bench, picks up both items, and though she knows it’s impossible, she feels like the phone is heavier with the weight of the newly added number inside of it. 

 

“Hey, Chow?” she asks.

 

He pauses in the doorway to the locker room. “Yeah?” 

 

“I need advice.” She’s a little hesitant to ask him-- they barely know each other. This practice is really the only time they’ve ever hung out one-on-one, and the only reason it’s happening is because Jordan had been halfway to a nervous breakdown thinking about her first game back from her injury and none of SWH’s goalies were free to practice. She only gets the words out because she figures an outside opinion might be less biased than asking any of her teammates.

 

Chow immediately returns from the doorway, sitting across from her on the bench and fixing her with his full attention. “Sure. What’s up?”

 

Huh. Seems like she picked a good person to confide in. She leans against the boards and looks down at her phone to avoid meeting his eyes. “So, I have a relative who I haven’t talked to in ages because he kinda moved away and dropped all contact? But now I got his number from his mom and-- well, I’m not sure if I should call him.”

 

“Ooh.” He pauses and thinks for a second. Takes another sip from his bottle. “That’s a tricky one.”

 

She waits for him to say something helpful, but he doesn’t. He must be waiting for more information, so she continues, “He straight up iced me out for years.”

 

“You say out like a Canadian.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

He takes her attitude with a wide metal-mouthed grin. “It’s cute! Anyway. Why do you think he didn’t talk to you?”

 

Jordan leans on her stick while she thinks for a second. “Fuck, I don’t know. I guess he was pretty busy with his own shit for a while. And it’s hard to go back once you leave, you know? Once you realize there’s shit about you that you’re sick of hiding from your family?”

 

“Yeah, that’s fair. Do you think he’s-- I don’t know, more settled now? To a point where he’d be better at talking?”

Jordan snorts. “I hesitate to say settled, but I guess it’s possible. It’s been a long time.”

 

“Mm. Maybe shoot him a text and see if he’d be able to talk sometime soon? That way the ball’s in his court.”

 

Jordan considers this and nods, slow. “Yeah, that would probably be good. I’m just worried that he’ll be just as bad as he’s been the last few times I’ve seen him, you know? I don’t want to be talking to him if he’s just going to be a douche.”

 

Chow nods. “That’s fair. But I mean, no offense, you seem like the kind of person who doesn’t take shit from everyone. I feel like you’ll be a pretty good job of knowing if you need to drop him.”

 

Huh. Jordan nods. “I guess so. Thanks, man.”

 

“No problem!” He stands. “Glad I could help.”

 

He heads into the locker room, and Jordan sits out looking at Faber for a few minutes. She’d been approved for full-contact play only just this week, but Coach Lewis had seemed pretty sure that she’ll be playing at the NCAA finals in Minnesota. The team is flying out tomorrow and Jordan doesn’t think she’s ever been this nervous about a hockey game. Nervous enough that she’s sick to her stomach when she thinks about it too hard-- in fact, she was nauseous enough that she’d run up to Celeste’s room in the middle of the night, worried that her concussion symptoms were back. 

 

Celeste had talked her through it, but still. 

 

There’s so much that could go wrong. She doesn’t think it’s the contact that she’s worried about. No, she’s pretty sure it’s the idea that she won’t be able to find her place on the ice again. Her chemistry with Celeste and Lauren was hard-won, and after two months, she might’ve lost all of it. 

 

Several minutes must pass, because Chow reappears in the doorway wearing his regular clothes. “Are you good?” 

 

Jordan gives the rink one last look. She’s already skated her last game with Celeste here, although she hadn’t known it at the time. Thinking about it makes something in her chest ache in a way she doesn’t like. 

 

She takes a deep breath. They have at least one more game.

 

Breathe in. Breathe out. It’s not over. 

 

\\_._/

 

“Hey, scoot over.” There’s really no room for two people on the armchair that Celeste has tugged out onto the balcony of their hotel room, but Jordan attempts to settle next to her anyway. 

 

Celeste fixes her with a glare. “It was nice and quiet out here.”

 

“Fine. If we lose, you can blame it on me messing up your vow of silence, okay?” Jordan finally finds a place to rest, half on Celeste and half hanging off the arm of the chair. 

 

“Mm. I will. Now shh.”

 

Jordan curls up more. She’s not smaller than Celeste, but like this, with Celeste’s arms around her, she feels secure, so she does settle quietly for a few minutes. It’s only when she rests her head against Celeste’s chest and feels the slow, steady beat of her heart that she realizes that her own pulse is racing. 

 

Eventually it slows to match Celeste’s, and she’s just drifting off into a light doze when she feels Celeste tense under her and sit up a little. “Jo.”

 

“Mm?” Jordan doesn’t even bother open her eyes-- just grabs a handful of Celeste’s hoodie and tugs to let her know that she’s paying attention. 

 

“I think your phone is ringing. Want me to get it?” 

 

It doesn’t make any sense, because Jordan is on top of her, but Jordan still mumbles her agreement, so Celeste carefully maneuvers out from under her and drops her back into the chair. Celeste can hear her footsteps, gentle on the concrete of the balcony, and then the slight hiss of the seal on the sliding door opening. 

 

It’s quiet for a second. A little chilly, since it’s March in Minnesota, but nothing Jordan’s not used to. She’s just settled down again when Celeste reappears at the door, holding Jordan’s phone to her shoulder. 

 

“Hey,” she says, quiet. “It’s Kent.”

 

Jordan sits straight up and holds her hand out for the phone. Celeste hands it over without another word and then heads back into their room. Jordan is thankful for the privacy as she lifts her phone up to her ear. 

 

“Kenny?”

 

“Hey, Jo-Jo.” He sounds-- and she hates that this is the first thing she notices-- sober. Clear-headed. Older, she supposes. “I got your text.”

 

Oh, right. She’d sent the first text she’d drafted to him yesterday before they’d gotten on the plane, acting quick before she had any chance to start doubting herself. “Nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule to talk to me.”

 

It’s a bit of a low blow, but he doesn’t take the bait. “Yeah, I figured I probably oughta make up for me being a mess last time.”

 

He sounds deeply apologetic in a way that feels very unfamiliar coming from him, and Jordan wants more than almost anything else for him to just drop the act and pretend they’re just as close as they were when they were kids. But the thing is, they’re not, and it’s going to be a while before they get back to that, so she just says, “That’s a good idea.”

 

She doesn’t give him anything more than that, so they sit in silence for a few moments, but it’s not that uncomfortable. Just contemplative.

 

Then, Kent says. “Well. I should probably go, but I just wanted to call to wish you luck on your game tonight.”

 

Jordan is taken aback for a second-- not just about Kent knowing that her final is tonight, but also about him knowing that she’s still playing at all. It takes her so long to form a response that she’s not sure if Kent is still on the other end of the call.

 

“Kenny?” she finally asks. 

 

“Yeah?” 

 

“Thanks. Good luck on yours, too.”

 

He laughs. “Yeah, we’ll see. Caps first line is brutal this year.”

 

She laughs. “Tell me about. I think--”

 

There’s a gentle tap at the door and Jordan looks up to see Celeste on the other side, indicating at her watchless wrist. 

 

Jordan cocks her head at her, then understands. “Oh. I think it’s time for us to get ready to head to the rink. I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”

 

“Yeah. Well. I’d say good luck again, but I know you don’t need it.”

 

“See ya, Kenny.”

 

He hangs up and Jordan pads over to the door. She gives a little shiver as she steps in. “Jesus, it’s cold out there. I think a balcony would be better if it was like, August or something.”

 

She looks up and catches Celeste eyeing her carefully, eyes narrowed. 

 

“Celeste,” she says, prodding her girlfriend’s shoulder. “It’s fine. He called to wish me luck.”

 

“You don’t need it,” Celeste says, quick, and Jordan has to laugh at that. 

 

“He said the same thing. It’s the thought that counts, babe.” She reaches out to tug at Celeste’s ponytail. “Come on. We got a game to win and they’re not going to wait for us if we’re late.”

 

The mere thought of being late is enough for Celeste to hurry, and if her rushing over to the bathroom to finish getting ready gives Jordan an excellent view of some particularly well-developed hockey muscles? Well. Jordan certainly isn’t complaining. 

 

\\_._/

 

There’s less than a minute until they need to get to center ice for puck drop and Celeste gathers together their starters for one last pep talk. It’s the kind of thing they’ve done what feels like a million times before, and there’s really nothing new to say at this point, but something compels Jordan to take a knee. 

 

She kneels there, attention completely focused on Celeste, and it occurs to her that she’s never trusted anyone as much as she trusts her captain at this moment. Lauren drops too, and a second later, so do Courtney and Sierra. They surround Celeste in a semicircle, and Celeste takes it in stride, not a second of hesitation.

 

Again, Jordan thinks:  _ I trust you. I love you. I’m ready.  _

 

Celeste finishes talking. Johanna returns to the goal, and the rest of them head to center ice.

 

People are always asking Jordan what it is she likes so much about playing hockey. Everyone. Her teachers in high school, for example, and distant relatives she has to talk to at family Christmas, and the cashiers at Wegmans who always want to chat for a bit. They all want to know what it is, as if there’s some secret beside it being a game that she’s good at.

 

She’s never had a particularly impressive way with words, but after years of grasping for the closest to perfect way of describing how she feels on the ice, she settled on on flying. In fact, she wrote about it in her college admissions essay, which had confused the hell out of her mom when she’d tried to help Jordan edit it. 

Celeste takes her place across from Minnesota’s center in the circle, and the ref pauses to speak to them for a moment, head ducked, all of their faces solemn.

 

It makes perfect sense to Jordan, though. When she’s on an airplane, she figures, that’s the fastest she’s ever going to be moving. She thinks, at least, and google seems to agree with her. Logically, she thinks she can confidently say that flying in an airplane is the fastest her body will ever move, since it’s unlikely at this point that any of her childhood fantasies about being an astronaut will ever be fulfilled. 500 miles per hour, or something like that. It’s ridiculous. And you can feel it, too, up in the air, looking out a window when you’re above anything. At least when she flies, all her senses feel magnified. 

 

Science can be damned, though. 

 

The puck drops. Samwell wins the faceoff. 

  
It’s when she steps out onto the ice-- body surrounded by artificial cold and the assault of bright light--  _ that’s  _ when she feels her fastest, strongest, most alive. It’s not even like she’s the fastest skater out there, even. That honor belongs to Celeste. Jordan is bigger and slower and always going to be just one step behind Celeste, in the gap that she leaves behind as she moves too fast for anyone else on earth. A perfectly Jordan sized gap right behind her and a little to her right. Jordan fits herself in there and knows that she’s home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title, and the story title, come from Captain by the Zambonis-- the last verse of which is especially apt for this story:
> 
> "I will be your captain  
> Lead through all that happens  
> I'll wear the "C"  
> You can put that weight on me
> 
> The journey may get hectic  
> But if we all can rough it  
> In the end the team will win again
> 
> (And again and again)"
> 
> And with that, it's over! Let me know what you think in the comments! And as you no doubt already know, I'm @hockeydyke on tumblr and @sydneyharper98 on twitter. 
> 
> Last, but certainly not least, the announcement I promised you! This story may be over, but mostly as a thanks for all of you being so supportive throughout this entire writing process, I'll be taking requests for oneshots for the next week! Stories will be written throughout the month of December. I'm willing to write OMGCP prompts, prompts about my SWH characters, etc! Shoot me an ask on tumblr if you want to see a story. I expect that I'll be able to take prompts until next Saturday (December 2). There's a possibility that I may have to close prompts before then, but I doubt it, since I will have all of winter break to work on these. I hope to see all of you on tumblr and I look forward into writing some oneshots!


End file.
